Zombie Prison
by redwallanderson
Summary: A group of survivors try to survive in a prison besieged by the living dead.
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE**

"Sir, I'm sorry, but we give up. We're going home to our families. This thing is getting too big and too hard to control. You can shoot us in the back if you want to, but either way we're going home and . . . taking our rifles with us."

Wordlessly, the warden watched as three hundred prison guards marched out the open gates of Virenna Maximum-Security Prison. They had endured some hardships during these past few days as the isolated prison got news of the chaos reigning in the world around them, and they never budged. The whole time, they had never budged an inch. But now, hearing that even the President was being evaced from D.C.? They were going home to their families.

The Warden looked around at the quiet prisoners staring at him accusingly from their cells, with their ribs showing. Food had been scarce lately, and the Warden had given the order only to feed the guards and the trustees.

"Now, boys," he said very slowly. "I know I've got no chance of living the instant I press the button releasing all of you from your cells. So I'm going to press the button and then I am going to implement this device here." He raised a gleaming nickel-plated revolver with a hollow smile directed towards the puzzled inmates.

"Don't you want us dead, you old fart?" yelped one of the prisoners, staring suspiciously at the Warden through the bars of the cell that he had been behind for at least a decade or so. "Have you got more guards waiting outside to shoot us when we come just a-running out, eh? Because if you do, just let us starve in here."

The Warden shook his head with a gentle smile. "I am going to release you from your cells now. It's your choice whether to go outside or stay in the open cells. I'm giving you a chance to have your lives back. Go to your families, go see your kids that have been born while you've been in this hellhole. Go bed your wives one last time before these infernal creatures that God has sent upon us devour us all. But, there's a catch. Death smiles at us all this day." He pressed the button, closing his eyes and lifting the revolver to the side of his head and pulling the trigger. The loud gunshot echoed throughout the quiet prison as the Warden slumped over sdieways, dead as a doornail.

The prisoners walked out of their cells ever so slowly, footsteps booming in unison on the tiled floor. Then with one large "YEE-HA!!" echoing all over the prison even louder than the gunshot, they stampeded out of the gates after the guards. Some were planning on catching up the guards and giving some long-deserved revenge. Others just genuinely wanted to get to their families. Still others just wanted to go out and repeat the murderous crimes that had gotten them in prison in the first place. This time, they'd commit them in a lawless environment against helpless refugees, however.

Only seven inmates still sat in their cells, that cramped space they had lived in for so terribly long. At the same time they all stood up and walked out into the empty hallway and stared at the corpse of the Warden as if waiting for it to get up and try to eat them and turn them into a zombie. Everything was silent except for the Warden's radio blaring nearby.

"There has been a state of emergency declared," the voice yelled on the radio in a thick foreign accent. "London has been abandoned. Paris is enduring heavy defensive manuevers with the French Air Force and ground forces but the city is falling. Washington, D.C. is being torn apart by looters and the White House has burnt to the ground. Now, the one capital city truly remaining is Moscow and we aren't going to be able to stay afloat for too terribly long. This may be our last transmission. If this is true, then good luck and Godspeed to you all." The voice then stopped, probably forever.

One of the inmates stepped forward. This guy would put someone in mind of a rabid dog that has been chained for far, far too long. His narrow blue eyes were like two windows on the afternoon sky and they gleamed with a deadly intelligence. He knelt beside the Warden and grabbed the revolver, checking the load and ejecting the empty shell carelessly. He aimed the revolver at the other prisoners coldly.

"We are all that's left," he stated very calmly and very slowly. "You may have stayed here for your own purposes -- I don't really give a shit what they are, to tell you the truth -- but I'm going to secure this prison against the undead and try to hold out. I don't want to die and I _sure as fuck_ don't wanna be a zombie, alright? If you're with me, step up. If not, stop wasting my time and go out the gate or I'll shoot you through the face. Any questions, boys?"

An older black man that had been in the cell across from the first guy stepped forward, right into his face and stared the younger man down, not even looking at the revolver aimed at his chest. "I haven't spoken once in the thirty-eight years I've been in prison, so consider these words very, very carefully, kid. You're a lot like me," he said finally, in a gravelly voice. "You're a former murderer. But you're a good, almost reformed guy. I'm staying with you, man. What's your handle? Mine's Roger. Roger Horton to you."

The guy stared at Roger for a moment longer, probably considering his words carefully before answering. "I'm not a murderer like you. You killed two people. I'm a mass murderer, Roger. But I'm much obliged to you wanting to stay with me. I accept your generous offer. My name's Danny Godfrey."

One of the other prisoners that had not yet stepped forward twitched, as if he recognized the name. Danny's lip curled slightly. His exploits had gone across America like a hot knife through butter and Danny wasn't necessarily proud of it, but that was how it had gone down and that was the past. Now, the future was before him and he was going to take it by the balls.

The next man stepped forward and looked Danny right in the eye boldly. This entergetic gentleman was -- surprise, surprise -- Hispanic. And to look Danny in the eye, he had to look up because he was very short albeit with a broad-shouldered build. Despite this, his beady green eyes gleamed with mischief, but no anger.

"I'll stay with you," he offered. "I've got no reason to go back to California, despite the seven million I've got waiting back there. They call me Richy Rich. Got busted on a two-bit coke deal few years or so back. Haven't been corrupted by the system yet. Hopefully I can be of some use to you. I sure as fuck don't wanna go out there and get chomped on by some fucking zombie." He extended a hand towards Danny, who didn't shake it but Richy understood that he was accepted and stood back.

The next man was rather large and gave off a feeling of creepiness. He looked like he had been a pedophile or something. "We're in the middle of nowhere. Where the fuck am I gonna go to do my . . . work?"

Danny squinted at the man suspiciously. "Yeah, whatever sicko . . . Watch yourself or I might just cut your balls off just for the way you look at me. I don't like you already and that doesn't bode well for you."

The man stepped back with a wide grin, hands held up in mock defense, and let the other guys step forward. The next man looked like he had the worst acne in the entire world, and his uniform was stained with unimaginable substances. He was looking at Roger distastefully -- luckily Roger wasn't holding the revolver at that moment -- and grinning unpleasantly.

"I don't know if this shit is really really," the stained guy told Danny. "This might all be a figment of my imagination, but either way I'm in it with you, man. I just hope I'm not crazy. I hope this is all real. That'd be a relief." He stepped back, as well.

Another prison walked almost past Danny, who aimed the pistol at his face and indicated the open gate coldly, in case the guy wanted to leave. He looked at the gate and the distant retreating forms of the other inmates longingly, wanting to belong apparently, wanting to fit in. He was obviously a very insecure guy. Finally, wordlessly he nodded at Danny and walked back to the others, signifying he was going to stay.

The two final men stepped forward together without meaning to. One man was a hard-looking, scarred guy that appeared as if he had been through World War II two days ago from the cold, hard look on his face. The other was a smiling guy who looked like he enjoyed life no matter what. Danny instantly liked both. They each nodded, and that was that. Not counting himself, Danny had six inmates to garrison a massive, very empty maximum-security prison. And they had a lot of time on their hands and nowhere else to go now.

"First, we're gonna close that fucking gate," Danny yelled. "Then we're gonna break down the fucking door to the armory. I'm sure the pigs locked it before they left, but I know there are still some rifles and shotguns in there. Secondly, if zombie's come that gate's not gonna stop them for long. So we need to make sure we're prepared. It's . . . what, like seven feet high? That's really high enough to stop zombies if they pile up? No . . . Haven't you guys seen ANY zombie movies, you dickheads?"

He looked around, waiting for the affirmative response, but only some raised their hands half-heartedly. Roger flat-out shook his head. He had been in prison for thirty-eight years; Danny wasn't even sure if Roger had not been in prison when the original _Night of the Living Dead_ was released.

"You gotta be kidding me," Danny groaned with a sigh. "You guys suck. I should have expected this from cons. I'm like the only zombie-smart prisoner here. Okay, the first lesson is that we work as a team, no matter what. If some zombies get through, we don't just run away like pussies. The best defense is a good offense. I'm not your commanding officer, I'm just your teacher." He waited for the prisoners to protest, but they didn't and so he continued. "I'm out of my element here, but I'm going to try. You guys are alright in my book, because you didn't leave to go rape innocent survivors. This may be the world's end but I'd rather be in it with you guys then some dumbasses in a mall."

The other prisoners nodded silently. They were hard men. They had raped children. They had killed children. They had killed other people. They had stolen cars, robbed houses, kidnapped people, shot up their schools, every crime imaginable, one of these seven men had done it. But they had one common goal: they wanted to survive.

"You get the point basically," Danny said finally after a long, long uncomfortably silent silence. "Now let's secure those gates and then make sure the prison is empty of any fucking zombies. Then, we're gonna go to the armory and get those guns and--"

"You mean THESE guns?"

Two shotguns cocked loudly. The 'freed' prisoners turned slowly to see the owners of those shotguns and their eyes beheld two women standing about ten feet down the hallway aiming the weapons at them. It was the prison's psychiatrist, Cora Durant and her assistant named Allie. Cora was an unusually beautiful woman with chocolate-brown skin and full lips that were curled into a smile right now as she approached Danny, the shotgun aimed towards his groin.

"So, you're the brains of this operation, are you?" she asked him, apparently amused by this idea. "I have a problem with that, though. See, you lifers are not eligible to be paroled for ummmmm . . . Never, right? So, you can't have these weapons or the others in the armory and your friends here definitely can't. I'm sorry. Get out those gates and stay gone or I'll put you back on death row." She twitched the shotgun to show what she meant. "You guys are pure predators. Each and every one of them and especially you. So take that prison bus out there and leave or it'll be your time to die."

"Don't kill him," came a voice from behind the psychiatrist and she turned, staring at the speaker in confusion and surprise. It was Roger, and he was of course simply distracting her. Danny grabbed her from behind, getting her in a headlock and Richy Rich gripped the shotgun tightly, pulling it from her grip before she could fire it. He aimed the shotgun at the assistant, Allie, and she aimed back at him.

"You won't kill me," she yelled defiantly. "You're not a killer. You're just a fucking coke dealer. I read your file, you little spic bitch."

"Are you sure about that?" he replied coldly, stepping closer and closer and making the woman back up more and more until she was against a wall and Richy was only a few feet from her, both of them still aiming at each other.

"Please, don't do this," she whimpered, letting her shotgun point at the floor and she slid down the wall into a sitting position, sliding the weapon away in surrender and sobbing quietly. Richy knelt beside her, leaning the shotgun against her throat very gently, finger on the trigger, and he whispered in her ear, "If you ever point a gun at me again, you little sissy girl, I'm going to kill you. You're a fucking weakling."

Danny shoved Cora over to where Allie was against the wall and grabbed the shotgun that the assistant had shoved away. Richy and Danny stood aiming the weapons at the two women. Cora stared defiantly up at them, eyes burning bright.

"Just end it," she screamed. "Come on, you cowardly little pricks." She looked directly into Danny's fierce eyes. "Yeah, you. You crazy animal. You killed your entire high school math class just because your mom was a drunkard and didn't hug you enough when you were a little kid. Why can't you kill me, you little prick? You sick . . . sucker. Here's your chance to kill again."

Danny lowered the shotgun. "I'm all used up," he said quietly, apparently replying to Cora's words. "I don't need this shit right now. Richy, throw the bitches in one of the cells and find out how to close it. We'll find out what to do with them later." He looked at the creepy guy who he had thought looked like a pedo or some rapist. "Don't touch them or I'll do things to you that you can't even imagine, you sick fuck. The only reason I'm not doing it right fucking now is that I don't want to become you." He looked at Roger next. "You, me, Mr. Rapist, and the other three besides Richy are going to come with me. We're all gonna get better acquainted while we close the gate and secure it."


	2. The Plot Thickens

**CHAPTER TWO**

The controls to the mechanized gate of Virenna Prison had been destroyed somehow and the inmates discovered that they'd have to push the heavy gates closed themselves and they were not happy about it. Danny, of course, convinced them very easily after one of his speeches.

"You guys need to understand two things," he started calmly, hands on his hips. "Number one is: if we don't close the gate, the zombies are gonna get in and we're gonna die and then become zombies ourselves. Numero dos: If we don't close the gate, the prison will be overrun and I will have no safehouse, so you guys will be useless to me." He drew the revolver and cocked it, aiming at each and every one of them, especially Roger. "I will kill you, is what I mean."

A bit reluctantly but without further ado, the prisoners moved forward as one to close the gate. Danny watched unsympathetically for a few moments before joining in, tucking the revolver into his waistband and helping to muscle the gate closed. He didn't want to act like a slave driver or else he'd never be able to sleep while these men stood watch, awake. He didn't want to never wake up because he got knifed as he was napping.

The rapist guy was staring a hole right through Danny as he pushed, obviously intent on revenge -- and maybe something else. Either way, Danny wasn't intimidated. He was just anticipating the man's eventual attack so he could have a legitimate reason to slice the little fuck's throat. That would be a good day, indeed.

When they had finished, after a half an hour of grueling shoving the gate into a secure position, Danny wiped heavy layers of sweat off his brow and addressed the panting, weary men. "Now, hopefully we'll never have to open the gates, because it would take like a week just to pry it open now. But the point is that if zombies come, that might not hold them since it's not exactly locking them out. If like a hundred of them shove hard enough against the gate, it's opening inward. So we need to barricade it." He looked around at the sweating prisoners staring at him. "Well, what are you waiting for? You there. Dude that looks like he's been through a war. What's your name?"

The man stared at Danny silently for a moment, his cold ice-blue eyes seeming to stare right through him. He gave off a feeling of absolute cold confidence even though he looked like he was about fifty. No matter his age, he looked like he could grab a little stick off the ground and kill Danny with it effortlessly.

"My name is William "Willie" Kiger," he said finally in a thick British accent. "I was a hitman for a large Mob boss about a decade ago. I have one of the largest kill counts ever recorded. I would have left with the others out of this hellhole but I don't like being out in the open. Want to stay in an enclosed, defendable space. Alamo, don't you know?"

Danny didn't point out that the defenders of the Alamo had lost. He instead looked at the stained guy. "What about you? What's your handle, stained guy?"

"Woodcock," he said with a wide grin. "I don't have a first name. I forgot it."

Danny blinked, kind of creeped-out, and then motioned for Mr. Woodcock to step back and let the last guys come forward. That was when the pedophile guy came forward and looked him right in the eye.

"I'm Rossiter," he said simply. "And I'm gonna kill you eventually." With that, he backed off, leaving Danny smiling in anticipation of that day.

The last guy was the nervous, insecure man who had wanted to leave the prison and follow the other inmates who had left when the Warden released them. "I'm . . . " He swallowed deeply, trying to find words. "I'm Jonah. Seymour Jonah Justice." That was all he said before he backed up, looking at the ground and shuffling his feet nervously.

Danny took a deep breath, tiring of learning names but glad that he now knew everybody slightly. He knew his enemies, his friends and what could be either of them. "Okay now let's barricade that fucking gate. Spread out and find stuff to pile against it, is that clear?"

As he worked alongside Roger pushing a large wooden scaffolding against the gate (the guards had been building a new tower), Danny made slight conversation. "You know, I always thought coming to prison would be all getting fucked up the ass in the showers when you dropped the soap and trying to escape by tunneling out through a grate with a spoon with Clint Eastwood. But it was much different than I thought it'd be. Dull."

Roger groaned, muscles standing out hard as he shoved the scaffolding a few more inches toward the gate. It was a heavy construction. "I've been in this fucking place longer than any of these fuckers and definitely longer than your seven years, Dannyboy. You get institutionalized. That's really why I didn't leave." He stopped for a moment, panting and wheezing. He wasn't a young man, after all. "I couldn't imagine life outside this place after thirty-eight years here. My wife is probably dead by now or re-married. I've got no family out there."

Danny chuckled without any mirth whatsoever. "Well I can tell you one thing. In the next few days, this prison is not gonna be a prison anymore. It's gonna be a stronghold. It's gonna be Fort Knox, baby. And all we've gotta do to make it that way is to man up and fucking PUSH!"

He roared with extertion, shoving the scaffolding into place against the gate securely and collapsed to his knees, fighting the urge to vomit. That would be a show of weakness and that was one thing career criminals hated the most. For the first time since he had killed five students seven years ago, Danny felt remorse for his actions. It was a strange feeling to be having at that moment and he shook it off.

They headed to the armory -- six staggering, bone-tired inmates. They had worked almost to unconsciousness, but Danny was satisfied that the zombies could not push the gate open with any less than five hundred of them out there. He saw that Cora had already unlocked the formidable steel armory door which was usually barred and grinned wearily. He beckoned for the other convicts to proceed. "Shall we? Help yourselves, guys. Go grab the weapons that you'll win your freedom with."

There was a wierd silence as the prisoners walked into the armory, reverently running their hands over the firearms sitting in pristine condition on the racks, polished and oiled beautifully, ready for action. Danny was chillingly aware that even he himself was thinking homicidal thoughts while he stroked one of the AR-15 semi-automatic rifles. Blurry memories of blood flying through the air and his daddy's pistol barking and Danny's own maniacal laughter echoed through his mind before he snapped out of it.

"Okay, stay with me here, guys," he cautioned. "I like most of you guys so far and I don't want to shoot any of you. Except Rossiter of course." The pedo glared at him while rubbing the buttstock of a rifle and Danny grinned. Roger slowly picked up one of the shotguns, admiring its sleak profile. Danny watched him cautiously as he continued speaking to the cons. "We've got an arsenal of weapons here. Doesn't mean we have to use them on anyone but zombies and looters, alright? Is that understood? I really don't want to give you guys weapons, but I'm gonna give it a try, because I really wanna shoot Rossiter if he tries to kill me."

They loaded up on weapons and headed back to C Block, where Richy Rich was still watching over the captured women. Danny kept looking over his shoulder to where Rossiter was admiring the shotgun he was carrying and Danny gripped his own rifle tighter, hoping this would be the day. But it wasn't. They made it safely to C Block without any attempts on his life. Danny was disappointed, but there was always tomorrow.

Cora stood up from where she had been comforting a sobbing, terrified Allie and grinned defiantly at Danny, who was standing in front of their cell. "Aww, you boys are getting guns now, eh? That's sweet. You better play nice with them, boys. Don't want to start shooting each other, isn't that right?"

Danny stared into her eyes very calmly. "This is your last chance to try and be reasonable before either A. I put a bullet through both you and your assistant's face and end it right here and now or B. I give you to my boys as a sign of good faith." Behind him, Rossiter's face lit up, adding a horrible truth to Danny's words.

Cora flinched visibly. "I'm not scared of you," she said defiantly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Do your worst. There are people eating other people all over the world, so you can't possibly do anything worse to me than anything zombies could do.

Rossiter took an eager step forward, but Danny shoved him backwards with the barrel of his rifle. The creepy man snarled. "She's nothing, man," he wheedled. "She's just a sack of shit. Let me take care of her, eh?" His eyes gleamed with burning madness as he stared at the women and licked his lips.

"My anger is not reserved for them. It's reserved for you, Rossiter," Danny explained calmly and before the other former prisoner could grasp those words, Danny slammed the buttstock of his rifle into the man's face unexpectedly with a big smile on his face. "I wanted to do that for a long time now, you sick fuck. If you ever give a bad look at either of these women again, I will cut your dick off and feed it to you, do you understand me clearly?"

Rossiter lay on the dirty tiled floor, spitting out a broken tooth, blood running down his chin and his eyes gleaming with an insane yet pained glee. "You would die for them?" he asked incredulously. "Because if you do not let me have at least the crying, weak girl there, I'm going to kill you eventually and take them anyways. And it will make it ever more sweeter to win the chance to have them."

Danny just smiled and turned away. Rossiter grabbed the shotgun he had dropped and aimed it at the younger man's back, squeezing the trigger with a triumphant caw of terrible insane laughter. The shotgun clicked empty and Rossiter's face fell as he looked at it in dismay. "Oh, crap," he whispered.

" 'Oh, crap' is right, you dick-cheese. Do you think I'd actually give YOU a loaded fucking gun?" Danny asked rhetorically, turning around and raising the rifle, unsafetying it and putting a bullet through Rossiter's open, surprised mouth in a spray of bloodied teeth and flesh. To make sure he was completely dead, Danny smashed his head with the rifle butt three or four times, feeling bone and brain matter give way as the buttstock sank down into the dying man's head.

Face flecked with Rossiter's blood, Danny looked around, raising the gore-covered AR rifle and looking at the other convicts. All he could think was _One down, five to go._ "Any other people still want to have their way with these young women? Because if you do, please respond now so I can kill you and get it over with. These women are mine now, is that understood?" He waited, but no one said anything. "Now go and fucking secure the rest of the prison, you dumbfucks!"

They nodded, backing away and then turning and running away outright. Cora stared straight into Danny's eyes as he opened the cell and let the two women out and she smiled her true first smile. He grabbed up Rossiter's shotgun and pulled out some shotgun shells that he had pilfered from the armory and loaded the weapon, handing it to Cora. "Do you know how to use this?"

She nodded, accepting the gun. "I learned shooting before I learned first grade. Here's how I'm gonna put this though. I wasn't raped. Because of you and you only. I'm glad you were here. You're the one good man here. Do Allie and I make your crew or do you want to give us the same ultimatum I gave you? 'Get in the prison bus and go', remember?"

Danny smiled and shook his head. "I would, but we already barricaded the gate and I would not unbarricade, let you drive out, and then rebarricade that gate for anyone. So I guess you're stuck here, both of you." He looked her over critically. "You got nerve. I like that. But your friend Allie or whatever here is fucking pathetic. Teach her to be a fighter or I'll definitely let my boys have her."

He walked away, leaving her with those thoughts -- both advice and threats -- to think about.


	3. Rutledgeville

**CHAPTER THREE**

Each day, the weather seemed more gloomy. Each day, the rain came down harder and harder. But no zombies appeared in sight of the prison gates until about the seventh day after the inmates secured the gates and got the weapons. This first example of living dead staggered out from the woods on the side of the road leading up to the gates. It looked like it had come right out of the morgue drawer if it hadn't been the condition the walking corpse was in.

Shafts of light passed through the bullet holes littering the chest and shoulder of the zombie and it looked malnourished. Danny stared at it through the binoculars he'd found in one of the guard towers, watching from the tower itself. It was a disgusting sight, to be sure. The zombie seemed to sense him and raised a bloody hand towards the prison a half-mile away.

Danny lowered the binoculars and nodded to Richy Rich, who was standing beside him. It had been agreed that they would train on shooting by firing at zombies. The former drug lord raised one of the bolt-action rifles that the guards had used and aimed through the scope at the distant zombie. He squeezed the trigger, and the rifle roared and jerked, dust puffing up ten feet in front of the zombie where the slug hit. Danny sighed and nodded again, this time to Roger, who was next in line.

Roger grunted, aiming very carefully and pulled the trigger, his own bolt-action rifle barking as it fired and shot the zombie in the knee. It stumbled and nearly fell but kept coming, dragging its now-useless left leg. Roger cursed and began reloading while Willie, the next in line, expertly took aim.

The trained hitman fired and the bullet entered the zombie's chest, pushing it backwards and it fell, laying motionless in the muddy street. The prisoners all cheered and Willie gave a rare, almost-toothless smile. Danny smiled and looked through the binoculars to confirm the kill but the zombie was already sitting up, blood pouring out of the bullet-hole. "That's fucked up," he whispered, then had an idea and raised his voice. "Aim for the head, you guys."

The walking cadaver got back to its shoeless feet and came on towards the prison mindlessly, its haunting moans carrying to the inmate would-be sharpshooters on the rain-smelling wind. Jonah aimed his rifle as carefully as he could, hands trembling nervously, and set the sights between the zombie's blank, rotting eyes. He blew its head into two and the cons cheered him and he grinned widely.

Danny clapped him on the back proudly. "You guys are doing me good by showing some improvement for a change." His smile faded after those brief encouraging words and he got grim. "Just don't forget that we're on our own. We've got to make the best of it. We have to hold out. When the zombies come and we're actually shooting to save our very lives, it's going to be nothing like that calm shot Jonah took. It's going to be hectic and chaotic as fuck. So train on some fast head shots because there are definitely gonna be more zombies coming today. Let's go maggots."

With that, Danny moved away from the shooters and stood at the other side of the tower where Cora was kneeling beside Allie and trying to get the catatonic woman to respond to something. The psychiatrist looked up from her makeshift 'patient' when his shadow fell over her. "She's been having seizures and all kinds of stuff. Spouting gibberish about being a weakling. The brutal murder of that pedophile right in front of our cell might not have helped too much, either." Cora was staring at Danny accusingly as if it was all somehow his fault for killing Rossiter and saving her life.

"She's okay," the convict replied, seeming to shrug it off. "She hasn't been doing time here like us prisoners. She's just a whiny bitch."

Cora seemed to stare right through his tough exterior into his soul. "We still have to get some medicine for her. The guards looted my storeroom. We have to go into the nearest town. We need food and water supplies anyways. We can't live on this prison gunk forever and you know it."

Danny sighed very deeply, rubbing his weary eyes and staring out toward the distant dots of zombies approaching the prison in small -- but growing -- clumps and groups. "You're gonna be the death of me, woman," he muttered to himself, but loud enough that he knew she could hear as well. "Sometimes a man can just tell."

--

Danny figured their mission had a fifty-percent chance of survival so he wasn't going to take the whole contingent of defenders with him. Just himself, Cora, Roger, Willie and Jonah, and he left Richy Rich in charge of the others back at the prison because he believed the man was loyal and true.

The pointlbank shotgun blast was disastrous, inflicting a close-range abdominal wound to the zombie that sustained it. Already clinically dead, of course, the undead heathen just stumbled backwards with the force of the gun blast, rotten entrails splattering every which way. Staring blankly at the firer of the shot through a pair of cracked and blood-flecked pair of glasses, the zombie kept coming.

Planting his feet solidly, Jonah aimed the shotgun carefully at the dark form staggering toward him. "Vaya con dios," he whispered grimly, squeezing the trigger. The zombie toppled finally dead, a fountain of blood gushing from the remnants of its face. Danny clapped Jonah proudly on the shoulder and complimented his good shooting.

The small foraging party had been moving through the dark countryside outside the prison in this same manner for about an hour now, and they had gotten a fair distance before encountering a zombie but even when they did find the occasional walker, they were few and far between. Morale was high and they were joking with each other while they downed zombies, as if the majority of them weren't rapists or murderers and stuck in a zombie apocalypse.

But as they got closer to the town of Rutledgeville, about two miles away from the prison itself, the mood got more grim. The logical thought going through their heads was that when they neared a town, there'd be more and more zombies because most of the citizens would be zombified by then. There was no rain, no thunder, no noise at all as the survivors quietly stalked through the overgrown sugarcane fields around the small town.

Everything seemed to be going good . . . It looked like they'd be able to just sneak into town, get the food, get the meds, and get the fuck out . . . Until Jonah's foot was grabbed by a legless zombie crawling among the tall grass, and he screamed, flinched and fired his shotgun instictively right ahead . . . right into Willie's back, then another quick blast into the zombie's forehead but it was too late for Willie. Everything had gone to hell in a single moment's space of time . . .

Willie fell face first in the mud, shrieking in horrible pain. Meanwhile, zombies started moaning from the nearby town and all around in the fields. Cora just stood there, frozen in fear and horror as Roger raised his rifle and began banging off shots at the closest zombies. Danny did the same, while Jonah stared down at the writhing form of Willie with an odd look of . . . satisfaction?

"He's still alive," Cora let out in a choked gasp. "We've gotta . . . We've gotta get him out of here. Can't just leave him laying here for those things to get." She looked into Danny's eyes, catching his gaze. "You saved me. Save Willie.

He kept her gaze for a long second before breaking it away. "I owe you one. Not Willie Kiger." Danny inwardly groaned. Willie was a good guy, but they couldn't drag him along with them if he was that badly wounded, could they? He was going to die anyways, right? Right?

"God damn you all to hell," Willie snarled, vomiting blood and puke all over the ground in front of him as he grabbed vengefully at Jonah's leg, huffing and puffing with the effort of not sobbing. "You fatass. You killed me, you little prick. I'm gonna come back as a zombie and bite a big chunk out of your big ass."

Cursing, Danny met Roger's eyes and the man nodded, continuing to fire into the zombies starting to encircle them in a closing net of dead flesh. Danny knelt by Willie, checking the man's status. He had ten separate abdominal wounds where the buckshot had penetrated through from back to front. It was very gruesome and hard to watch the once-feared hitman laying critically wounded in a pool of his own blood, taken down finally by the likes of Jonah.

"You're a tough son of a bitch," Danny whispered into Willie's ear. "And I need people like that." On a split-second decision, he grabbed up the wounded man and slung him over his shoulder, dropping his rifle carelessly and began running toward town with Willie in tow, the others following and providing cover fire.

"Danny, what the hell are you getting yourself into?" he whispered to himself, as he ran and ran. Straight into Hell itself, in the form of Rutledgeville, North Carolina.


	4. Kill Will

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Willie was bleeding out all over. That was all Danny could think as he dodged through the rubble-littered streets of Rutledgeville, barely avoiding what was almost a football tackle from a younger-looking zombie. The ghoul stumbled past when it didn't ram into its expected, juicy prey and Cora double-tapped it in the face efficiently, blowing it backwards and out of its misery.

And through all of this, on Danny's broad back, Willie lay probably dying and -- for once in his life -- he was hoping there was a heaven up there somewhere. He knew it hadn't been just an individual shotgun pellet that hit him; it had been a whole shitload of buckshot. He had seen holes blown in walls with that stuff, and it had hit his vulnerable back? Willie was screwed and he knew it.

Danny stared around desperately, stepping over a headshot body lying on the pavement and then he spotted a grocery store and a grin split his face. "Put on your happy face, guys, because we're going in there," he said, raising one foot and kicking repeatedly at the half-open door of the store and finally knocking it open and running inside. The others fired a few more shots before following. Jonah, the last one in, slammed the door shut securely right before the zombies reached it.

Danny didn't waste time laying Willie down onto one of the cashier's check-out counter thingies. The guy was heavy. He just kind of laid there with a massive red stain on his shirt and pants, looking forlorn and pained. "That's just the roll of the dice," Willie grunted in his strange accent. "I've killed over six thousand people in my long years, did you know that, boy? Now, I'm getting paid back tenfold."

Danny shook his head grimly, watching as Cora and Roger and Jonah dashed through the aisles, kicking aside things like kitty litter and video games and music CDs. "This isn't some video game, like _Resident Evil_, do you understand, Willie?" Danny asked very quietly, looking the man steadily in the eyes. "You can't just start the level over. This is not the time to go pussy on me. You're gonna live."

Willie grunted and squeezed his eyes shut tightly, but a pained tear still leaked down his grizzled, whiskered cheek. "It hurts so bad," he murmured. "Won't stop bleeding, either. I think I'm not coming back from this one, kid."

"Now, you just relax," Danny ordered, forcing the older man to lay back on the less than comfortable counter and looked towards the door, which was beginning to slowly crack. It was made to withstand petty robbers, not a horde of hungry undead monsters. "I've got enough shit to deal with, man. I knew we shouldn't have ventured out of that prison, god damnit . . . "

The first zombie broke through the door and staggered down the dark aisle towards Danny and Willie, letting out a wet, choked gurgle. "Hurry the fuck up," Danny screamed, pulling the pistol out of Willie's waistband and cocking it and unsafetying it, beginning to fire repeatedly into the zombies.

"We can't go any fucking faster!" Cora yelled, from where she, Roger and Jonah were piling food and meds into a shopping cart as fast as possible.

Danny stared at the approaching wall of zombies coming on relentlessly, and realized there was no turning back. He wasn't going to abandon Willie. He slapped in a new clip that he'd grabbed from the wounded man's belt pouch. Willie grabbed his arm, however and shook his head slowly.

"It hurts, boy," he groaned. "But it doesn't hurt so much that I can't buy you guys time to get some supplies and head out the back way to the prison, right? I'm a lost cause, ain't I, right?"

Danny stared into the former hitman's ice-cold eyes which suddenly softened and he shook Willie's hand and gave over the pistol. "Thank you very much," he whispered into Willie's ear, taking one last look towards the zombies before running towards Cora, Roger and Jonah. He felt horrible, leaving Willie to die alone like that.

The outcome was unspokenly loud in the air when Danny run up to the other three alone and they stared at the ground in silence for a moment, except for Jonah who continued working busily to load the cart. "Did you know him well?" Cora asked aloud after a moment, apparently a question to anyone.

Roger threw some pain pills into the cart and then spoke after a second of further pressing silence. "On visiting days, when my grand-daughter came to see me, Willie was getting visited by a little pigtailed blond in the next room. I think it was his daughter. We talked a few times. That was it. He was a tough guy. But a good guy."

As gunshots began echoing behind them, the four survivors pushed the cart silently out the back door of the grocery store, tears leaking down the cheeks of three of them and a smile tugging at the lips of the fourth. One person plotted treachery and betrayal and even murder and rape. Two plotted romance. One plotted ambitiously to take over the leadership at the prison.

But either way, as the life left the eyes of Willie Kiger, zombies swarming all around him, the survivors marched away from the grocery store where their friend died, and one thing could be said truthfully. As true as the sun rose on a new day a few minutes later, this was going to be a day to be remembered.

The survivors headed down the road at the fastest pace they could muster, with Cora and Jonah pushing the shopping carts full of supplies and Roger and Danny walking in front of them carrying the guns and watching for zombies. They were barely running, just trotting along at a steady pace. As with the journey towards Rutledgeville, on the trip back towards the prison zombies were few and far apart.

As they walked, Cora gave fleeting glances to the side towards Jonah, who had a sickly smile on his face. She could tell that all kinds of stuff was going through his mind at that very moment, and probably not good things. He wasn't as bad as Rossiter . . . But then again, Rossiter hadn't killed Willie and Jonah had. Cora started wondering what exactly the strange, murderous man had been incarcerated for in the first place.

--

When they returned to the prison, it was fully daylight. It wasn't the noble and heroic return that could be expected. The foursome staggered up, exhausted and sweaty and panting as they shoved the shopping carts up to the barricaded gates.

Richy Rich stared down from the guard tower with a wide grin. "I'll be damned if you guys aren't a great sight to be sure. It's funny but . . . Just a week or more ago, most of you four down there were trying to escape this hellhole. Now you'll be glad to get in, won't you?"

Danny stared coldly up at Richy Rich. "We've got supplies. We've got medicine. We just wanna get the fuck in. We just wanna rest."

Richy Rich's grin disappeared. "Where's Willie, though?"

Jonah stifled a laugh and Danny gave him a cold glare before answering Richy. "He decided to take a little time off. Permanent-like . . . Now let us the fuck in."

Richy looked at Danny's hands, which were caked with dried blood, and then nodded soberly. "Welcome to the party, pal," he said, dropping the strong length of rope so they could tie up the shopping carts to it and lift it up.


	5. Survivor Series

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Danny. Cora. Jonah. Richy. Roger. Allie. Woodcock. A merry bunch of survivors if there ever was one. And most of the brain cells between the group were possessed by Danny, Cora, Roger and Richy Rich. They weren't exactly the cream of the crop of survivors of a zombie plague, but they would do in a pinch. The thing was, they were all dying out slowly, person after person. First the Warden, then Rossiter, and now Willie. Only seven people were left. Would they all die?

Danny stood on the wall with Roger, a hand on the shoulder of the bitter-faced elderly man, who was mourning the loss of Willie. The British hitman had not only been a good marksman, but he'd been one tough mothafucka and he'd been a good guy at the very end, and that counted for something.

"Just for kicks," Roger said suddenly, hatred in his voice.

Danny stared at the back of the older man's head, which was all he could see from where he was standing. "What?"

"Jonah put those twelve-gauge pellets into Willie's back just for kicks. Maybe on accident, but he really doesn't feel remorse." Roger turned to see Danny, and his face was filled with revenge. "I may have been sentenced with life in prison, but I'm not really such a bad guy, Danny. And there's still justice in the world, isn't there? Aren't we living proof that there's justice in the world?"

Danny looked away, out over the hordes of zombies that were starting to gather in front of the prison gates. There wouldn't be any easy run-and-gun supply-finding operation the next time. They would have to somehow kill a lot of zombies to get out of the prison the next time.

"That's for sure," he murmured in response, to Roger's question. "But take it easy, all right, Rog? We're gonna get the fat sumbitch later. Just try and get along with him for the moment. We need his labor right now."

The black man stared at him for a very long moment, breathing deeply and then nodding quietly. He was Danny's only true friend and that was strange. Danny had seen him leading the African-American gang of the prison and had hated the man for a long time but he was starting to realize, that color did not matter. Roger was as much a human being as Danny and maybe more. He definitely showed more compassion for the human race. Maybe he was a better man than Danny even.

Operation: Cleansing was what Danny thought of it as. The two most impure men in the prison were Jonah and Woodcock -- Woodcock was otherwise known as the Stained Man from earlier -- and Danny was determined to either tone them down a notch or simply kill them. But first he had to find other survivors to replace them. That might be a tough thing to accomplish, after all.

But a week later, when supplies had almost halfway run down from just the seven people that lived at the prison, the sentry on duty at the moment (Cora) spotted black smoke on the horizon as the sun rose. Danny stared at the smoke predatorily, hoping he had hit paydirft with this sight. Smoke meant fire and fire either meant some dumbass zombie had knocked over something flammable into a house's heater . . . Or it meant that survivors had built a fire to signal other survivors.

"This is damn sweet," Richy Rich rejoiced gloriously, jumping up and down. "I hope it's some actual _women_." He sent a scathing glance towards Cora, who responded by rolling her eyes. Allie just sat there catatonically as usual. "Actual women meaning 'not bitches and not crazies'."

But as Danny kept staring towards the black smoke, now through the binoculars, he felt suddenly blossoming worry. The worry increased when a very distant shot rang through the air, carried by the wind just as the moan had when they had first seen a zombie staggering down the road towards the prison.

Roger tssked-tssked wearily. "They're just gonna draw the whole pack of deadheads to them with those gunshots." And sure enough, the zombies massed in front of the prison's gates -- at least five hundred or more -- were slowly beginning to turn and head towards the black smoke and the direction of the gunshots. Dinner was served.

"Start shooting like there's no tomorrow," Danny decided -- a split-second decision that would make or break the survivors of Virenna Max-Security Prison. He dropped the binoculars and grabbed his rifle, beginning to fire wild, un-aimed shots down from the guard tower into the undead masses. "We have to distract them from the other survivors or they're screwed. We need more people anyways so we have to protect those survivors until we can rescue them," he yelled over the crackling gunfire.

The prisoners and woman psychiatrist fired rapidly for about three minutes, wasting maybe a carton of ammo before the zombies had fully returned their attention to the prison, facing their way and moaning loudly. Danny grinned widely as he saw the distant shapes of survivors skirting furtively around the outskirts of the zombie horde and heading for the back way of the prison.

"Smart," he muttered. "Very smart. I like these guys already."

--

When the prisoners shoved open the back gates of Virenna Prison, five perfect strangers walked inside their new home. Three women and two men, as it were. They introduced themselves separately as Edna, Mike, Aaron, Melody and Daisy. They were raggedy as hell, maybe even more than the prisoner group -- if possible. Danny, Roger and Cora -- the unofficial leaders of the prisoner group -- came out to meet the new survivors.

Aaron was a very pudgy man, but the leader of the new group nonetheless. He had an astonishing amount of facial hair. But Danny could tell immediately that the man was not an idiot . . . despite his appearance. Aaron stepped forward and looked Danny straight in the eye, as many other people had. There was also the fact that he had a high-powered rifle -- more high-powered even then the bolt-actions that the prisoners had acquired from the guards -- slung on a strap over his shoulder. Blood was splattered all over his face and shirt where he had obviously been killing zombies but not at long range with that rifle of his.

Danny was the first one to speak after the very informal introductions. "We live here," he said simply. "We're all a little tired, I'm sure. I know you guys haven't had a really safe place to rest for quite a while. So come on in and rest. We won't harm you. Or your womenfolk Ask Cora."

Reluctantly but without a word of thanks or welcome, most of the new survivors trudged by into the prison. But Mike stopped beside Danny, watching as Roger and Cora followed his comrades. When the two men were alone, the newcomer spoke.

"Prison is no fairy tale world," he said very quietly. "But uh . . . " He gave a very false, mirthless smile towards Danny. "If you touch my pregnant wife or sister . . . " He indicated in turn first Melody and then Edna. "Or my good friend Daisy . . . I'm gonna kill you and then I'm gonna kill your friends, too." With those joyful words, Mike continued on into Virenna Prison with Danny staring silently after him for a long while before following.

Over the next few weeks, Danny could see a palpable interest growing between Richy and Daisy. The young woman would sneak looks toward the older, yet handsome Hispanic man when the two united survivor groups ate dinner silently and took turns watching the moaning masses in front of the gate. Richy tried to get an eyeful of Daisy whenever he could, with Daisy doing likewise. Danny knew this spelled trouble. Big trouble.

But it seemed a really long time ago that they had been prisoners. Maybe Richy had changed for the better. That might have been true and might not have been. One thing was certain however. Jonah had changed -- for the worst. And he had been eyeing the beautiful and young Daisy, as well. Jonah was smarter than he looked. He started cooking up a plan that would frame Richy and get him a piece of that Daisy pie.

--

In between eating and looking at the same boring zombies every frigging day, the survivors liked to entertain themselves with some of the more recreational and relatively useless supplies that Aaron's group had brought with them. And it was apparent what these useless supplies were when a zombie staring dully up at the prison's guard tower took a paintball shot to the chest. It didn't mean anything to the zombie, barely staggered it.

"I love this stuff," Mike said, grudgingly accepting the Tippmann 98 Custom paintball marker from Danny who had just fired. It was Mike's paintball gun and he had brought it along because . . . Well, he didn't really know why. It didn't really matter, though. Not much CO2 left in the tank, either way. Mike fired a shot and missed, the paintball splatting on the ground next to the zombie Danny had hit. That zombie had been turned rainbow by all the different paintballs hitting it -- it had been designated Mr. Paintball Target by Roger himself. "Go to hell, buddy," Mike said grumpily, handing the paintball gun on to Cora, who was next in line.

"I'll get the rotting scumbag," Cora replied, licking her lips with concentration as she aimed the well-balanced marker and shot the zombie in the lower face, which had been mostly obliterated in a cake of dried gore. The relatively high-velocity shot knocked more of the skin away, exposing . . . well, just a horrible sight that cannot possibly be described unless you're an actual zombie survivor and have seen it before.

"AAAARGH!" everyone shouted, recoiling from the sight, but Richy snatched the paintball gun next, wanting his turn.

"Now, remember," Richy explained, "my marksmanship skills are still developing." He winked at Daisy and then aimed at the zombie, firing. His paintball zipped past its head and out of sight into the mob of undead. "Screw this fucking bullshit." He tossed the marker on to Mike again.

That was basically how their days went. All the survivors could do was shoot paintballs at zombies, keep watch, eat, sleep, masturbate or talk with each other. It wasn't as exciting as Dawn of the Dead but it was mind-numbingly, honestly . . . REAL. This was what these people were going through. And it was about to get a whole lot worse. It would bring the two groups closer together, but they would also lose a small number of people they were closest to.


	6. Richy Rich

CHAPTER SIX

Jonah watched quietly as Daisy did the laundry of the other survivors. Richy and Woodcock had labored for nearly two entire days to find the right place and then had dug a well in the exercise yard. Daisy had taken the water from that well and had washed the clothes, probably just for something to do, and was now hangng them out to dry in one of the empty cells. They were all alone and as Jonah stood there, stroking his scraggly goatee, he thought it was the perfect time.

He purposefully let out a low cough and Daisy whirled around, a knife already drawn from a sheath on her waist. She held it pointed at him for a moment and then put it away with an uneasy grin. "Oh my goodness, you scared me," she said, looking at him warily. "I'm Daisy by the way. What's your name?""

Seymour Jonah Justice at your service, missy," he replied in what he thought was a charming voice but was really cold and chilling, from the look on Daisy's face. He took a lightning-fast leap forward and pulled the knife from her sheath again, holding it to her throat so tightly that it drew blood while he grabbed her shoulder in a vice-like grip, bruising it even as he shoved her down. "Get on your fucking knees, bitch." Jonah stared down at Daisy gleefully; he had obviously had some serious daddy issues when he was a child.

The other survivors couldn't hear the young woman screaming over the gunfire as they sniped zombies from the guard tower.

--

Danny had come to look for Daisy, to tell her it was her turn to keep watch on the zombies down below, binoculars around his neck still so he could hand them over to her. He saw the sight inside the laundry room-cell and immediately was sent staggering back by the horror of it, sitting down hard on the cement floor, shocked.

"Oh, fuck," he whispered. He knew who must have done this. He just couldn't believe Richy would do something like this. Not anymore. Danny forced himself to go into the cell, avoiding looking at the blood-spattered, dead face of Daisy.

"Good Lord, no," came a quiet voice from outside the cell, again. Danny whirled around and saw Cora standing there white as a sheet. "Did you do this, Danny?" She looked shocked and horrified.

He shook his head quickly. "Of course not. I just got here to . . . " He couldn't finish and held up the binoculars and pointed at Daisy. "To . . . give her the binoculars so she could go on her watch. It was . . . it was her turn . . . " He nearly vomited at that moment. "I think it was Richy, Cora. Just uh . . . Just turn around and go tell the others, alright? GO!!"

When the woman had fled, Danny collapsed onto the blood-soaked floor with his head in his hands, sobbing brokenly. Damn Richy . . . Damn him. There would be hell to pay for this horrific incident. This proved that the prisoners could not be trusted. They had to be eradicated. Including Danny himself, if necessary.

--

Richy stood at the very edge of the wall, nearly over the edge, dangling over the masses of undead below hungrily reaching up and moaning eagerly. The survivors stood in a semi circle around him on the wall, blood drunk and ready for revenge. They had attached a chain around his neck, and it was dreadfully obvious that the chain was long enough for him to be reached by the zombies even as he died within a few seconds of a broken neck when he fell.

"I don't want to die," Richy explained calmly, a single tear running down his cheek. "And certainly not this way, being torn limb from limb by hundreds of zombies. At least shoot me in the face." He tried to catch Danny's eye but the other man wouldn't let him. "Come on, Danster. You owe me that much. You know I didn't kill Daisy. I liked her a lot. But if you think you have to scapegoat me for it, pull the fucking trigger. Don't let me die like this, Danny. Please."

Danny couldn't respond, so Roger gently stepped forward. He sighed deeply. He didn't like losing another friend, but Daisy had been a good girl and he truly believed that Richy had done the dirty deed. "Ricardo Manuel Sanchez, you are sentenced to hang by the neck until dead . . . or reanimated . . . May God rest your soul . . . ""

WHAT HAVE I DONE?" Richy yelled, his composure breaking and his eyes wild. "I didn't kill that girl. Maybe Jonah did it. Maybe even Danny. Maybe you, Roger. But I didn't kill and rape Daisy. Please don't do this, amigos." He began shaking his head fearfully and sobbing as Danny had when he discovered Daisy's bloodied and nude body.

Roger shook his head and turned to Aaron. "Take care of it," he said to the other man. He couldn't kill his friend but the vengeful Aaron definitely could.

Richy felt the blow coming but his hands were bound and he couldn't block it. He closed his eyes and stood there, whimpering and waiting, trying not to be too much of a wuss. Aaron stepped forward and whispered into his ear, "You're a fucking pussy," as one last torment before stepping back and raising one foot contemptuously.Richy Rich gave an anguished cry before Aaron planted a kick in his belly that took his breath away and knocked him backwards off the prison wall. His already-dead eyes bulged, staring up at his former friends as his face turned purple and he died horribly, swinging slowly into the arms of the zombies, who accepted him happily and began to chow down on his dangling legs. But Richy hadn't committed that terrible crime. This was what made what the survivors had done a crime itself. They had just murdered an innocent man in cold blood.

The others walked off, grimly satisfied that justice had been served. But Jonah remained, staring down gleefully at the swinging body of Richy Rich. Another one bites the dust, he thought happily. Bloody marvelous. He bared his teeth in a fierce grin. One day soon, Danny was going to be next. Maybe not in the same way Daisy had gone, maybe a more gunfire-involved way. Either way, Jonah knew he had to hurry up and go help to bury Daisy or they'd suspect something.

There would be no burial for Richy Rich. He was a condemned man once more, this time for eternity.


	7. Back to Rutledgeville We Go

CHAPTER SEVEN

After the execution of Richy and then Daisy's burial, the survivors were very quiet for a long while afterwards. The prisoner group had lost yet another friend. The new group had lost a friend. Both groups had conflicting emotions boiling. And Danny could tell that Aaron and his group didn't trust the prisoners or even Cora and Allie anymore. It really hurt him, but he knew it was a wise move. The two groups slept in separate cell blocks, and all was well. And as the days progressed, Danny started suspecting Daisy's killer and rapist might still be inside the walls of Virenna Prison.

But they had an even larger and pressing problem at the moment. Those problems seemed to be coming harder every day. First Rossiter, then Willie, then Richy and Daisy, and now their supplies were slowly running out. They had enough left to last out the week.

"Can't we just wait until we're almost completely out, and then we go out to get more only when we absolutely have to?" Cora pleaded with Danny. She remembered what had happened the last time they went out for supplies. Danny did, too. He would remember it for the rest of his life.

He shook his head regretfully. "There's not a lot of food left. And if we wait till we barely have any left and THEN go . . . Well, what if the supply team doesn't come back? What will the others do then, Cora?" She didn't reply. She couldn't. "Exactly." He walked away from her to gather a group of volunteers.

--

Later that day, in the dead of night, the five survivors that had been chosen for supply retrieval duty were outside the walls of Virenna Prison, running through the undergrowth and thorns as fast as they could but as quietly as they could as they skirted the edge of the undead horde at the front of the prison, which was still too stupid to come around the back way. It was -- predictably -- Danny, Roger, Mike and Jonah.

"You scared?" Danny panted as he ran alongside Mike, who was a newcomer to the whole supply-running thing. "Because if you are, you can just admit it. It doesn't matter to ex-cons like us.

"Mike scoffed at this. Not at the fact that he looked scared, but at the fact that they were 'ex'-cons. "Yeah, you guys definitely aren't convicts anymore. Daisy cut her own tits off and raped herself and THEN shoved her OWN knife up . . . " He couldn't finish and Danny was glad.

Danny waited until they had completely gotten past the zombies and were about a mile out in the brush on the side of the road, before tripping Mike and slamming him face first into the dust and putting his knee on the back of the man's neck, effectively holding his face into the dirt as the man struggled. "If you ever talk about my friends that way again, I will slit your throat in your sleep, you motherfucker," Danny whispered in Mike's ear. "Sure they are dangerous. Sure, they are scum. But they saved your asses and distracted the zombies and for that, I vouch for them. This isn't a game. So fuck off."

With that warning, he let the other man up and they continued on towards town, which was again Rutledgeville. Little did Danny know that two people were plotting revenge against him now. He didn't really care though. As he walked into Rutledgeville, he was on the verge of tears, remembering Willie Kiger. He stopped in front of the store, looking at the empty darkness inside, trying not to remember when there had been zombies swarming through the doors.

"Let's fucking kick some ass," he yelled after a long moment. And the operation started just as they had planned. Jonah and Roger ran into the store and grabbed new shopping carts from the racks, shoving them into the darkness to begin grabbing supplies. And Danny and Mike went to one knee in front of the store to assume firing positions and cover them; this time, there wouldn't be any zombies swarming into the store.

When Danny looked across at Mike, he was surprised at his look. Oddly, he was grinning widely as he aimed his rifle around the fog-laden ghost town that had been Rutledgeville, North Carolina and his grin widened when the first zombie, a skirt-wearing little girl with a torn throat and a torn sundress, staggered into view and moaned, coming at Mike with outstretched arms and a hungry stare out of eyes that glared sightlessly.

"Shoot her, Mike!" Danny yelled, but the man wouldn't. Cursing, Danny aimed his own rifle at the zombie's face ruthlessly and pulled the trigger. Blood splattered everywhere as the little girl fell backwards. Danny was on a roll at that point as another zombie fell when he shot it in the side of the neck. And then he stopped firing single shots and fired semi-automatic bursts, fired and fired and fired, fired until the clip was empty. He realized when the gunshots faded that he was still screaming wildly at the approaching figures of the zombies. "I HATE YOU!"

Mike stared at Danny, shocked, and then raised his own rifle. "You don't fool around, do you guys?" More gunshots popped as Mike kept the zombies off of Danny while he reloaded and then Danny did the same for Mike. They had been shooting for about ten minutes when Jonah and Roger pushed two carts out of the front of the store and yelled that they were ready to roll. "Let's get outta here, Danny!"

Danny turned away from the hungry undead assault for a moment, turned his back on the zombies. Sweat gleamed on his forehead, but he was smiling. "I can't go, guys," he said very quietly.

Roger stepped forward, shoving Mike aside, his eyes worried. "No, Danny. It's time to go, man. Stop fucking around."

Danny shook his head slowly, and held up his right arm, where he had been bitten badly and was bleeding like a stuck pig. "It happened when Mike wasn't looking, when he was reloading. I'm bit, Roger. That means I'm fucked and you know it."

Roger stared at him with shocked eyes. Then he turned to Jonah and Mike, who were staring quietly at Danny but were rejoicing inside. "I'm going to stay here with him then, guys." He turned to Danny again. "Not leaving here without you, brother."

Danny stared at Roger for a moment, searching his eyes for the man's true intent but could only detect true friendship and slowly a smile tugged at the edges of his mouth. Without looking at Jonah and Mike, he said one simple word, "Go." And they went, only Mike staring over his shoulder in slight sympathy. Jonah seemed very satisfied indeed.

Danny and Roger stood quietly beside each other, as the walking dead trudged closer and ever closer. "You know what," Danny said suddenly. "I think I'm gonna smoke my last two cigs." He handed one to Roger and put one in his one mouth, lighting both. "I'm gonna die tonight, I'm sure. So are you, since you wanna stay, Rog. But uh . . . Let's not go out standing here like a bunch of pansies. Let's take these rotting mothafuckas out."

They turned as one, crouching and aiming their rifles. And all Danny could think as he inhaled nicotine and fired into the zombies was . . . this was fun as hell. As the zombies pressed closer and closer, Roger and Danny backed farther and farther away, firing as they went. Danny put a bullet through one's nostril and the zombie flew back a foot, only to be replaced by another and another and another. And it was going to only be a matter of time before the gun clicking empty replaced the gunshots.

Danny looked over his shoulder and saw that Jonah and Mike had already disappeared into the darkness and he smiled bitterly. The blood-thirsty zombies, now only mere feet away, lunged in for the kill.

--

The ragtag group of remaining survivors sat quietly in the guard tower, eating on the new supplies that Mike and Jonah had brought in. But there was the fact that they had brought it in without Danny and Roger. Cora was huddled in a corner crying softly, while Allie was ironically trying to comfort her. The numb silence was horrible and pained.

"Okay," Aaron spoke up finally, getting to his feet and naturally assuming the mantle of full leader of the two joint groups. "We've come this far. We don't need Danny, that kid-killing bastard. We definitely don't need Roger, that geezer. So let's brighten up, guys. We should be celebrating new supplies, not mourning two scumbags."

Cora stared at him, tear-filled eyes blazing angrily, and she shoved Allie away and stood up on her own unsteadily. "Let me go, Allie. I've got to say my piece." She looked solidly at the pudgy man who was trying to take over Danny's position as leader. "I'm not giving up on him, alright? We'll look for him or something. We owe him that . . . . "

Mike shook his head slowly. "The guy was bitten. We saw the bite. It looked bad. Roger chose to stay behind with him. They're zombie-food, darlin'."

She shook her head fiercely. "You obviously don't think you have your natural human obligation of saving people anymore. But you do. And so do I. And I like Danny a lot so I'm going after him." She didn't add what she knew was the real reason she was going out, just rubbed her belly worriedly. The pregnant woman (Mike's wife Melody) looked at her suspiciously, her eyes glinting knowingly.

"They're dead!" Jonah yelled suddenly, punching the wall hard to get the attention of everyone. When Cora looked like she was about to interrupt, he raised his shotgun threateningly. "Now listen closely. I am in command now. Not you, Aaron. Not you, Cora. And definitely not you, Mike. No one is going out after those two."

Slowly and with a degree of hesitation that he wouldn't have shown before Danny started teaching him to be a better man, Woodcock stepped forward beside Jonah and officially yet silently joined the Jonah's-My-Boss fan club.

"You little weasel," Cora whispered, her hurt eyes staring at Woodcock, who lowered his gaze in shame. Woodcock and Jonah stood aiming their guns at Cora, Allie, Edna, Melody, Mike, and Aaron. Jonah's face was gleefull because he could let his secret out at last without fear of big ole Danny kicking him down in any way.

"Did y'all know your friend Daisy could squeal like a pig?" Jonah asked, looking over at Aaron and Mike happily. "It was such fun just to . . . take care of her, if you know what I mean, eh? Eh?"

A thin stream of blood flowed down Aaron's chin where he was biting his lip hard against the almost overpowering want -- no, need -- to grab for his rifle lying nearby. But he knew he'd be dead before his hand got halfway to the gun. Jonah had taken over the prison and he had humiliated and horrified the captives . . . They had murdered Ricardo Sanchez in cold blood.

--

Roger and Danny staggered wearily among ruined cars, through the rubble-strewn streets of Rutledgeville. About fifteen feet behind them came at least four hundred former human beings of the zombie persuasion, hungry for their sweaty flesh. The two former convicts had a head start, but they were tired nearly to death and were using their empty rifles as crutches, trying to bravely march on.

"Come on," Roger wheezed. "I bet there's a lake right around the corner of Fisk Street there, buddy . . . Use that motivation. Use it." He pulled Danny onwards; he was worried about the other, younger man. He was not looking so good and might turn soon. Roger held a pistol hidden at his side, regretfully waiting for the moment to shoot.

"I can't breathe," Danny sighed, and fell to his knees, vomiting all over the street explosively. He looked like he was about to die right there. Indeed, there was blood mixed in with the disgusting puke itself.

"Get up, Dan!" Roger shouted right in Danny's ear. "I ain't fucking playing, you bastard! We are going to make it!"

Danny laughed, wiping vomit-smelling blood off his lower lip, and then puked again. This time, there was more red mixed in. "Yeah, because a rescue squad's coming right?" he asked sarcastically. "I'll bet you five dollars that Jonah and Mike told them where we are. Because they love us so much. I bet they're trying to save us right now."

"I know Cora wants to save you," Roger answered him quietly. Danny turned to see that the black man was simply kneeling beside where Danny was lying in a pool of his own vomit in the street, the zombies coming closer."

Why is that?" Danny asked, suddenly intrigued, ignoring the zombies.

"Eh, the usual," Roger replied with another sigh, spitting contemptuously on a zombie's foot. They were so close away he could smell them clearly now -- decaying flesh and human waste. "Preggo."


	8. The Devil Went Down to Rutledgeville

CHAPTER EIGHT

Panting still but mostly just shocked, Danny stared at Roger. He was kind of pissed off at the moment, despite the bloody bite on his arm and the infection running and pumping through his veins. "So I why do I have to hear from you about this and not Cora herself, damn it?" he asked incredulously.

Roger chuckled even though the zombies were a mere ten feet away now and closing in slowly. "Because you two aren't exactly America's Top Lovebirds right now."

Danny shook his head, growing more pissed off by the second. "Argh that selfish bitch, man . . . " He dragged himself up and staggered onward. "Come on, Roger. I'm living just so I can give her a talking to. Trying to not tell me about my own unborn child. I'm not having that, you know?"

Roger hugged the ground for a moment longer, vomiting as well, before staring at the zombies for a moment with something in his eyes that was almost fear but looked more like loathing to Danny. Then he got up as well and followed his friend. "Dying of thirst here, it feels like . . . We need some water or rest or SOMETHING!"

But they kept on trucking.

--

As Cora stared quietly out from the guard tower at the mass of zombies below, she realized a couple of things she hadn't before.

Point one . . . These were mostly Night of the Living Dead-type zombies. Dumb, slow, and relatively weak when not outnumbering the survivors. But if you got too careless, you'd look away from them for a second and underestimate them because of their lack of speed -- and then when you returned your attention to the zombies, they'd already be surrounding you. And then there were the Dawn of the Dead '04 type zombies. Dumb, fast, and relatively weak. Not much difference from the NOTLD-type zombies except for the one obvious difference: they were fucking fast. They were fresh zombies, their leg muscles not completely rotten out yet, and they could still run for some reason. These were the scary ones. They were both scary, though. Because they were flesh-eating zombies either way, and that's fucking creepy no matter what.

Point two . . . As Cora stared down at the zombies, she also saw that they were starting to decay signifigantly. Most of them retained both eyes, but their noses were usually partially gone and the area around their mouth was usually beginning to undergo signifigant necrosis in places. Of course, some of the zombies were even older and were being to seriously look rotten as fuck. Both eyes, all their teeth and their nose were gone. The zombies were starting to look more like zombies than regular people.

Point three . . . While Cora was silently observing the zombies, she was holding a pistol at her side. She had liberated this handgun from Woodcock while he guarded her in a cell and she had run to the tower. She could hear the door banging behind her as Woodcock and Jonah tried to bust in and recapture her, but she had barricaded it pretty securely with something -- she had forgotten what, exactly -- so she was pretty safe. For the moment, at least.

Point four . . . Cora was about to do something she might or might not regret a whole hell of a lot.

"Let me in, you fucking skank!" Jonah roared, smashing his shoulder over and over into the thick wooden door. The barricade was starting to budge, so Cora decided she'd have to act quick. She had a feeling if Jonah broke through the door, he was going to have his way with her and then get rid of her like the nuisance she was. And that was unacceptable to her, of course.

"I'm afraid I can't let you in," she replied breezily, strolling over towards the bank of control buttons casually as if she was on her Sunday walk. "I think I'm just gonna hit the controls of the gate and open it on up. I'm sure the controls to open the gate inwards will break apart your pitiful little scaffold barricade holding it shut . . . The zombies will pour in and you will be screwed, Jonah . . . Then I can go and get my man . . . "

The silence outside the door was overwhelming for a long moment, before Jonah's obnoxious, angry voice answered her. "You're a sitting duck, bitch. If the zombies get in, you'll be trapped in here. What are you gonna do? Take a stage dive off the tower? Like that'd work . . . " He waited but she didn't answer. "Let me in, you god-damn whore. I swear to God, you're gonna regret this."

Cora tssked-tssked loud enough for the two men outside the door to hear. "You just now cussed, Jonah. That's a no-no. Time for divine punishment." She hit the button to open the gate and sat back quietly.

Jonah went mad, smashing into the door repeatedly, practically foaming at the mouth from the way he was shouting. "I swear to God, you're gonna fucking pay."

Cora began laughing softly, cocking the pistol. "I'm fed up with your bitching. What are you, on your period?" She aimed at the wooden door. She fired. The bullet smashed through the wood, but unfortunately missed Jonah, the intended target. He had been drawing back to throw himself into another flying tackle into the door, and the bullet winged its mistaken way . . . right towards Woodcock, who was standing numbly by, waiting to get eaten by zombies. Or so he thought.

The bullet entered just above and in front of the Stained Man's right ear. It exited toward the bottom of his left ear, spraying gray brain matter, splots of blood, and gleaming white chips of bone all over the wall as he collapsed, dead as a doornail. Jonah stared at the body, eyes huge and wet, and then he dashed off, deeper into the prison.

Cora calmly sat there in the chair, grumbling. "Damn, I need a pistol mag," she murmured, not even caring about the zombies flooding into what had been the strongest hold-out for miles around. "Ah, the hell with it." She tossed the pistol aside and took a deep breath before implementing Operation: Charlie Horse.

She got over the intercom after releasing the others from their cells with a touch of a few buttons. "Get your rifles. Defend yourselves, run away, die. I don't care. But I'm giving you a chance to live because I'm your friend. Over seven hundred zombies are flooding into the prison through the front gate right now. I suggest you exit out the back. Pronto. Oh yeah and if you see Jonah, don't let him get away. Woodcock, either. Cora, out."

She drew her spare weapon, a .38 Special, and went to the storage closet of the guard tower, pulling out a length of rope. Bashing out the window of the tower with her elbow, Cora looked down and took a deep breath. Once the last zombie in sight had staggered completely into the gates of Virenna Prison, Cora hit the button closing the front gates of the prison and then waited for about five minutes to give her friends some time to escape and then shut the back gates completely as well. With that being her last action as a resident of the prison, Cora slid down the rope and was on her way to rescuing the father of her baby.

--

Danny staggered through the streets of Rutledgeville. He was starting to get a little whoozy and giggly and wondered if this was how his parents had felt when they got zombified, because they surely were by now. And his little sister. And his old girlfriend, Dora. No, wait . . . She died in the shooting . . . He had . . . He'd . . . He'd delivered the single bullet wound to her head himself. She'd been one of the first to go.

Danny snapped out of that funk and found himself leaning up against the side of an abandoned car, panting heavily. He was not a zombie yet? Holy shit . . . Maybe he was immune to this shit. Danny fought back the nearly-overwhelming urge to puke again and staggered on after Roger, who had gained the lead.

"It's funny," Roger wheezed, his back turned to Danny. "We came out here for food and meds two times and both times it ended in disaster. First, we lost Willie, a good friend and an excellent shot. Now, we've lost me and you. I'm pretty cool, I think. And you're our glorious fucking leader, eh?"

"It's good that you've finally realized that they're not gonna come for us," Danny replied after a moment of effort-heavy walking. "You just gotta suck it up, man. Focus for me. We can make it. I don't even think I'm gonna turn, man. I don't think it would take so long. Maybe I'm safe."

"Boy, you done lost your mind," Roger joked weakly. They were silent after that.

They had gone on for a couple more minutes when they stopped in the middle of the street, gazing in awe. It was a zombie standing there motionless. Urban camo pants and jacket, tactical vest, gas mask covering the face, and a helmet covering the mask. Obviously some kind of Special Ops. The whole nine yards. But definitely a zombie, just from the way it stood. But what was the awe-inspiring thing was the Humvee parked beside the zombie.

"Holy shit, a fucking car," Roger rejoiced. "No more walking for us, mothafucka!!"

For the first time in at least an hour, Roger and Danny ran. Towards that Humvee. And that was the most unlucky zombie in the world, because they would have bashed through Satan himself to get to that vehicle.


	9. The Virenna Redemption

CHAPTER NINE

Roger was driving, Danny still laying on the passenger seat, coughing and puking. His eyes were red-rimmed and he looked like he was going to turn soon. But this was the first time Roger had seen anyone turn so he was not sure. One thing he was sure of was that Danny was fighting the virus off as long as he could so he could see Cora back at the prison, which was where Roger was heading as fast as possible, the pedal to the metal, roaring along off-road through zombies and fences and all kinds of shit.

"This is fucking killing me," Danny groaned.

Roger laughed to himself, keeping his eyes on the road. "No, it's fucking turning you into a flesh-eating zombie. As they drew closer, Roger could smell the scent of the prison. Hundreds of unwashed, decaying bodies and flesh.

"It really hurts," moaned Danny from the passenger seat, and Roger turned to look at the festering wound and the Humvee hit a bump, flipping onto its side, ejecting its screaming occupants among the few zombies that hadn't went into the prison and been cleverly trapped inside by Cora. The Humvee kept going a few more feet, smashing into the closed gate with a loud boom.

"They're all dead," yelled a voice from their left, and Roger grunted, raising himself up on his bloody, skinned elbows to see Cora running past, weaving through the sparse group of zombies, carrying her revolver. "Come on, move it."

"What the fuck is going on down there?" a voice shouted, and Roger looked up towards the walls of the prison and saw, lit by the light of the burning guardtower, all the other survivors, including Mike, who had just shouted. "You might wanna help us. We're trapped up here and inside the walls there are about A THOUSAND FUCKING ZOMBIES. By the way, THANKS FOR LETTING THEM IN, CORA, YOU BITCH! Danny, fucking help us out, dude."

Roger looked to his right and closed his eyes tightly for a moment, as if refusing to see what he saw. "You're a little late," he yelled back up at Mike, his eyes still shut very tightly against the sight. Danny was all bloody and cut up from being ejected from the Humvee as well. But that wasn't what made Roger avert his gaze -- he had seen far worse. It was the other condition Danny was in. Danny was a zombie. He was staggering towards the shocked Cora, a hungry look on his face as he grabbed for the woman he loved, intending on devouring her completely. And Cora just stood there.

Roger, a tear leaking down his cheek, moved his hand around desperately through the blood and gore smeared in the dust from where the zombies had been standing in this area for weeks. He grabbed his rifle and cocked it, aiming at the back of Danny's head. By that time, he was outright sobbing as he pulled the trigger repeatedly.The night air was shattered by gunshots.

--

As the Humvee roared down the street away from Virenna Prison, seven survivors sat inside silently, two of them impregnated. They were heading for a better future. The zombies they passed tried to step in front, grabbing at the passing vehicle, but the car kept going relentlessly. Because they had to get pretty far away from the prison at that time.It became clear why as a deafening explosion blew the prison -- and the thousand or so zombies and Jonah still trapped inside -- to bloody smithereens. It was a blast heard for miles and miles around. It was a blast.

TO BE CONTINUED


	10. Zombie Road

CHAPTER TEN -- ZOMBIE ROAD

The survivors were travelling down the road but they weren't flirting with disaster. Melody was heavily pregnant and was screaming in the back seat, seeing as how she was currently into the ending stages of labor. Cora and Allie were holding her down while Melody's sister-in-law Edna was doing the actual delivering part.

"She's coming," Edna soothed. "Laurie Jean is coming, Melody." Melody had been pregnant since before the outbreak, so they already knew the baby was a girl. "She'll be fine, honey."

"Holy shit," Cora screamed, as she looked down between Melody's thighs and saw all the blood and . . . stuff pouring out, and then the baby's head. This was going to happen with her body, too. "Holy shit," Cora repeated. Melody was huffing and puffing, her face beet-red. It was bad enough she was having to give birth in these stressful, cramped conditions at all. But the fact she was doing it without drugs or anything? Daaaamn . . . She was taking the pain, overtime.

Her cries of pain proved that.She stared at Mike angrily, where he sat in the front seat of the Humvee. "You asshole, you fucking asshole!!" Her eyes were wild and she looked like she was about ready to kill her husband if Cora and Allie weren't holding her down. "You put this fucking thing in me, you asshole!! Just so you could have your kicks, motherfucker!"

Mike didn't look surprised. He'd seen a lot of movies, apparently. "It's gonna be okay, babe. Just calm down, you'll feel better after the baby gets out, o--" He was interrupted by Melody lunching forward and socking him hard in the face. He sat back, his eye already beginning to swell slightly.

"Damn," muttered Roger, who was driving in place of Aaron while the other man took a break in between Mike and Roger on the front seat.

"Get off me," Melody screeched. "Get the fuck off me, bitches!"

"Wait," Edna said quietly, and everyone stopped breathlessly, even Melody. She pulled out a blood-covered bundle. The sound of the baby wailing was the most relieving sound any of them had ever heard. "It's alive. All ten fingers, all ten toes. Great. Welcome to this zombie-infested world, Laurie Jean McCoy."

--

"Watch her head, and you can hold her."Allie silently accepted the baby from Melody, cradling her carefully in her arms. They had pulled over on the side of the road for the occasion and Aaron and Roger, the strongest men of the group, were standing aiming their rifles around protectively while the others fawned over Laurie. Allie gave a weak smile, the first show of emotion she'd shown since being threatened by Richy Rich.

"You did without an epidural or whatever, girl," Edna was saying, hugging Melody tightly. "You are so awesome."

Cora was standing to the side, as quietly as possible, holding her hand on her stomach. She wasn't showing yet, but she had missed her period and she was feeling queasy a lot. She must be pregnant, right? But she was thinking -- did she really want to go through all that pain that Melody had just gone through? Roger interrupted all the thinking and cooing over the baby by sternly speaking up.

"We better get a move on. Mike, your turn to drive. We're running low on ammo. Let's try to conserve it, people." He had naturally assumed the role of complete leader and no one had opposed him. Roger rocked, pretty much. Melody took Laurie back from Allie and turned to head back inside the Humvee, but then her face went wierd and she hurriedly handed the baby to Edna, with the explanation, "I think I'm gonna puke," and ran off to the other side of the vehicle, just in time to explosively vomit all over the weeds.

Mike looked worried about his wife. He turned to Roger. "I think we should just sit tight right here man. Just for a little bit."

The other man shook his head stubbornly. "It's not possible. We can't just fucking camp out here in the middle of nowhere. We've gotta get to a really small fucking town, load up on supplies and find a new place to stay."

Mike grinned. "Why not? Camping is a legitimate strategy."

But in the end, they got back in the Humvee and went.It wasn't much better than the prison, but the road was more free.


	11. Fatality

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The group of survivors had stopped at a little no-account town called Jerryville, Alabama, and let everyone get out of the cramped Humvee. Cora stood leaning against the Humvee hugging her pregnant belly and staring quietly out into the darkness, apprehension on her beautiful features.

"I can't have a baby here," she whispered to herself, and then realized she had actually shouted it when the others all turned to her with bemused expressions. She looked from one familiar, friendly face to another, biting her lip. "Sorry about that guys. But yeah, who would want to have a baby here? This world is horrible. I would feel like a Nazi death camp commandant bringing a baby into this world. It's just as bad a crime." She stared tearfully at Laurie, regretting her words as soon as they left her mouth when she saw the look on Melody's face.

Melody handed Laurie to Edna as usual and stepped forward, right up in Cora's face and for a moment looked like she was about to sock the other woman. But she deflated after a tense few seconds. "We are all that's left . . . " she explained gently. "We have to rebuild, you understand? Babies are the future." She turned and smiled at little baby Laurie, sleeping in her aunt Edna's loving embrace. "Laurie's part of that future. You understand that, right? Right, Cora?"

"But do you really want her growing up in a world like this?" Cora asked roughly. "None of the comforts we had growing up. No cable TV, no daycare, no watching Sesame Street, no bedtime stories and getting potty trained . . . " She felt tears running down her cheeks freely now. "We'll just be teaching them . . . how to shoot guns . . . And how to aim and hit a zombie in the head . . . And other SHIT like that."

With that, the conversation ended as those conversations usually ended. Roger called out that it was time for them to head out, and they all piled back into the Humvee and kept on trucking.

--_Birmingham, Alabama . . . 2 Days Later_

The Humvee drove through the ruins of the town, Roger looking around with experienced eyes and his rifle sticking out the window, ready for zombies or bands of oppurtunistic looters. He was locked and loaded and ready to kick some decaying zed ass. They cruised through a rubble-filled street at forty-five mph. Not very wise. And they learned that the hard way. The driver -- Aaron, at the time -- didn't see the crashed bus until it was far too late.

The Humvee flipped to the right, skidded on its side for a few dozen feet, and then hit another overturned Pontiac, and flipped rightside up and shuddered to a halt. Roger, his forehead bleeding pretty badly from a jagged cut, staggered out and looked around, still holding his rifle high in a defensive position. He could smell something though . . . The iron stink of blood was heavy in the air.He looked inside and saw Aaron crawling out from the Humvee, his face and chest smeared with blood. He was bleeding like a stuck pig, for sure, but a ghostly grin was on his young face.

"They're . . . " he started to croak, but then choked on his words and had to start over once more. "They're mostly . . . dead in there." He crawled past and inched under vehicles and rubble piles, to wait for everyone to get out who could. Roger shook his head in disgust and peeked again only to see Edna coming out, her cheek bruised and her body shuddering with sobs. She shoved away his comforting hands and went to wait with Aaron.

Roger sighed and looked in the ruined Humvee . . . again. Allie was sitting in the backmost seat, blood jetting out of her inner thigh and trying to stop the bleeding as much as she possibly could. Her hair was in tangles and she looked like hell. "Piece of glass . . . " she explained feebly. "Came through and . . . " Her head lolled back against the seat.Roger rounded up everyone. Basically what they had was . . . . . One extremely bloody but not very fatal shoulder wound (Aaron), one broken jaw (Mike), one broken leg (Melody), one unharmed baby (Laurie), one unharmed Cora, one relatively unharmed Edna and then there was . . . The fatality.

Allie was quite dead. Roger stepped back and assessed the situation with cool, hard eyes. He was just an aged man that had been thrust into leadership. He didn't truly know what to do, but he had to at least try. He owed his friends and fellow survivors that much, at least. Aaron and Edna lugged the blood-soaked body of their former friend Allie over to the side of the road and after a few moment's hesitation, threw the corpse into a ditch with a slight touch of regret for the way events had transpired.

"We've just been in a car accident, guys," Roger said as loud as he could muster, standing beside the flipped Humvee. "Now ain't that a kick in the head?" His eyes were burning bright with anger as he glared at Aaron, who was staring at the ground shamefully and not looking up. He pretended to smile suddenly. "But hey now . . . Look on the bright side. At least we're gonna get some fresh air . . . Eh?"


	12. Another Two Bite the Dust

CHAPTER TWELVE

They had no car. They were trapped in the rubble of Birmingham, Alabama with two M4 carbines, three bolt-action rifles, four pistols and one shotgun, and maybe fifty bullets for each of those weapons. Food was nearly nonexistent and Mike was in reasonably critical condition. They had to face these facts. Especially the fact that Mike was going to slow them down . . . And so would Melody.

Cora was the one to break the uncomfortable silence. "Well somebody say something!" she said shrilly, her eyes wild and worried at the obvious situation they were in.Roger stepped up to the plate. "We can't dick around here all day," he said gruffly and unmercifully. "Mike, Melody . . . You're fucked. That's not our fault." He turned to Aaron who was still staring at the ground. "Thank your buddy here."

Mike had a broken jaw, but he could still write on a worn sheet of scrap paper he had in his pocket. He held it up. It read: _You can leave me behind, but please take care of my wife and children_. He meant Melody and Laurie. Roger stared into the man's eyes and then snapped out of it."It's survival of the fittest," he said roughly. "And I can't waste a slug on you. Let's move it out, guys."

"No, no please," Melody whimpered, holding her leg where a jagged piece of bone was thrusting out through the skin. Her leg had been totally fucked over. She wasn't going anywhere soon. There was no way around it. Mike and Melody had to stay behind and most definitely die, or everyone had to stay behind and most definitely die. Unfortunately, Roger didn't want to die . . . and neither did the others.

As one, the survivors began walking away from the shattered Humvee and the place where Melody and Mike lay in a pool of their own blood on the pavement, watching the people they had thought were their friends walk away. Melody let out a choked scream of pain and horror and fear, all mixed into one, from where she lay on her back pathetically, grasping at her irreperably jagged leg and staring at the distant shape of Edna who was carrying Laurie. "I DON'T WANNA BE ONE OF THEM!" she shrieked. "I wanna watch my baby grow up damn it. Why me?!" She collapsed into a hysterical fit of tears.

"It's my fault," Aaron kept repeating, growing quieter each time he said it. Finally he was silent and just walked beside them without a word. In a very short time, they were out of range of Melody's cries and Mike's garbled yells. Luckily out of the range of their panicked and dying screams, as well.

And as the sunshine shone down upon them, the four survivors (and baby) were in Hell. Too bad there was no more room for them down there.


	13. Bye Bye Birmingham

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Roger. Aaron. Edna. Laurie. Cora. Four survivors and a baby. One survivor was a big, fifty-something black man with a gash on his forehead and mean, pissed-off eyes. Another was a quite pudgy man with a lot of facial hair and a bloodied shoulder who was looking at the ground in despair and shame that he had caused them to lose their car and three of their friends. A third was a young woman with blank eyes carrying the baby. And the fourth was a very pregnant lady who looked like she was about ready to just give up and collapse, because they had been walking for four hours. And they weren't walking through Willy Wonka's fucking Chocolate Factory either. This was zombie-infested Birmingham, Alabama and it wasn't pretty. Zeds were staggering about all around them, moaning and groaning and occasionally lunging close enough to try to get theirselves a chunk of survivor. And one was trying that right at that very moment, as a matter of fact.

"Fuck you, fuckstick!" Roger yelled, kicking the ghoul back and placing a high-caliber slug through its right cheek and knocking it to the already body-littered pavement. He saw movement inside a wrecked car and fired wildly and without aiming, the bullet smashing through the grimy, stained glass and killing the zombie trapped within. "I'll tell you what," Roger said aloud. "Staying in that prison instead of going with the other convicts when they left . . . That was the biggest mistake of my life. Been nothing but bullshit ever since. It's just dumb luck that's let us survive till now . . . " He saw another zed approaching from the left and shot it dead-center, right through the forehead, brains exploding out the back of its skull.

"It's our own fault we're here, you know?"Cora stopped moving, hands pressed to her abdomen and she stared at Roger. "We are going to make it through this," she promised. "Now keep moving, you son of a bitch." When Roger didn't move, she laughed and continued on with the others. "Fine. Stay as long as you like, I don't give a shit anymore."

Roger stood there in silence, rifle held at his side. He looked like he was about to say something, but he didn't. He looked back at Cora who was still slowly walking away, her expressionless face turned aside. "Fuck," he grunted, then let the rifle hang from a shoulder strap and followed her.

"Can you keep this pace?"

Edna turned to Cora, who had asked the question and then nodded in silence, cradling the sleeping baby tenderly. Laurie was her niece and she loved her dearly. She made it no secret that she didn't care if Cora or Aaron or Roger died horrible deaths, as long as Laurie lived. She didn't care if she herself died, as long as Laurie lived.

Then the survivors stopped. Up ahead the street was blocked by what looked like a collision between a battered red Dodge pickup truck and a church van. Cora stood there with a curled lip. "Looks like God's vengeance isn't only for non-believers," she mocked.

They heard an engine spluttering and turned to see Aaron struggling to start up a sedan nearby.

"How the fuck are we even gonna pull outta here?" Roger asked scornfully. "We are blocked to the front by that wreck there, and to the back by zombies."

Aaron looked at him angrily, as he started the engine and it turned over finally and the engine roared to life. He beeped the horn happily. "Ever heard of alleys, dickhead?"

--

The sedan sped through Birmingham, crossing alleys and intersections, weaving between crumbling apartment buildings and drugstores. This time Edna was driving. Aaron was kind of not to be trusted with a vehicle any more. The sedan's tires screeched as they pulled out of an alley and barrelled down the street at full speed . . . and out of Birmingham, the place where they had lost three friends. It felt like they were driving out of the bowels of hell itself . . . and maybe they were.

Roger sat gasping with relief in the passenger seat. "We need fuel," he reasoned. "The pumps are probably dry for a long way. So what the fuck are we supposed to do? Pull up to a BP gas station and magically make gasoline appear?"

Cora's lip curled again. "Talking like that is not gonna make everything okay," she replied gently, trying to calm him down. "We're doing the best we can to survive, and that's all we CAN do. If we play our cards right, we will survive. So don't panic. That road goes nowhere but downhill." Roger nodded.

The car roared down the street, leaving Roger's panic behind.


	14. The Price of Gas

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The sedan sped through a stop sign and Roger thought to himself that there was one thing good about the zombie apocalypse. No more fucking cops. They must have been pushing one hundred mph right now. And no sirens were going off as they whipped down the empty highway of Alabama. Apparently, the residents of Alabama didn't believe in evacuation so most of the roads outside the cities were relatively clear.

They were about thirty miles outside of Birmingham when they came upon it. It was simply beautiful. Roger's mouth dropped as he saw the gift that the higher powers seemed to have handed down to them, in the form of a gas truck parked on the side of the road. A man who looked like he was seeing the bad side of forty-nine was sitting beside the truck and quietly smoking a cigarette. Roger supposed he didn't give a shit if the gas truck exploded, he just wanted some nicotine.

The man laughed as they pulled up beside him and parked. "Hey, look. More fuckups. More products of this screwed-up generation. You know, back when I was just a boy, there weren't no zombies staggering around. Sure there was movies about 'em, but they weren't real but . . . Boy howdy, they're real now."

Roger got out of the car. "We need help," he said, not showing that he held the rifle at his side yet.

The man cackled and tapped ashes off of the cancer stick, taking another puff. "Tell me about it, sonny. Driving up here and being all bold and shit like you think I'm gonna help your big ass, even though you have a rifle? Fuck off."

Roger grinned, and the man grinned back and they just stood like that for a moment before . . . Roger lifted the rifle and shot the man in the right thigh. The guy grunted and fell to the ground, dropping his cigarette and grabbing at the wound with both hands. "It looks serious," Roger remarked with false concern, kneeling beside him. "Might want me to get my womenfolk over there to help you out. BOY HOWDY, does that look like a fucking nice gunshot wound to you, guys?"

"Hell yeah," chorused the other survivors coldly from where they were sitting watching emotionlessly in the car.

Roger grinned and hit the man with the back of his hand, not too hard, just enough to keep him conscious. "Now, you're impeding me from getting the gas we need to stay mobile and to stay alive. I will kill you without a single bad feeling, to get that gas. Now we need you because we don't know how to drive that big motherfucker or get the gas out. Are you gonna cooperate? Without gas, we are not gonna last long. We need you, man. But not so much that I can't put a slug through your head right now if you don't answer correctly, you hear?"

The man took a deep, wheezing breath. "Okay, okay," he replied. "I'll . . . " He grunted in horrible pain. "I'll help you, you sumbitch. But you'll regret shooting Buford Daniels."

Roger stepped back and chambered a new round in the rifle threateningly but he let it hang from the shoulder strap again. "Edna, get outta the car. This man here needs some doctoring. Patch him up a little."

Fifteen minutes later, they were on the road again, the sedan leading the way, fully refueled, and the gas truck following after. Roger reasoned that they might just be able to use that gas to trade for weapons and food with other survivors. He didn't figure that people might just want to steal it. That would cause problems very, very soon.

--

They passed burning cities where a few gunshots echoed in the distance every few seconds as they drove by. They drove on a narrow and badly paved road, with the guardrail missing and exposing a deadly, gut-wrenching hundred foot plunge towards a river far, far below it. And most of all? They passed lots of zombies. The survivors looked out in disgust at the open and bloody wounds, the chunks of flesh missing, the yellowed, disgusting teeth . . . It was truly a zombe apocalypse.

Then there was no more of the ghostly moans, just the wail of the car roaring up the hilly road, and they were gone from the horde of zombies. Roger looked over his survivors and most of them just seemed grim, but Edna was in a blank sort of shock. Roger was suddenly glad that he had taken over the driving for the time being. He did like being alive. And as they drove away from the screams and moans, Roger didn't know about the crosshairs of the rifle scope peering through the windshield of the sedan at him. The other survivors out there were hungry. They were tired. They were hunted -- by zombies and fellow survivors, alike. And they wanted some gas.

A gunshot suddenly rang out. A bullet smacked into the windshield, spiderwebbing it, but the slug didn't penetrate. The unseen sniper put another bullethole through the windshield, and this shot did go in. The bullet ripped through . . . And Roger yelped as he was shot through the leg, and this wasn't no love tap either. That was almost a military-grade sniper rifle. His leg was ripped open. He let out a second sound, but this was no yelp . . . This was a full-blown high-pitched shriek of pain. Another sniper bullet smashed the windshield entirely. Smashed it to bits, but didn't actually hit anyone.

Roger, through his agony, gazed into the freshly blood-spattered rear-view mirror and saw the gas truck backing down the road. It looked like Buford didn't want to stay and die for his new 'friends'. What a dick. Can't even shoot a guy in the thigh anymore without any hard feelings. Roger felt anger filling him as he kicked open the car door with his good leg and toppled out, barely missing getting his head ventilated as a bullet smashed the pavement by where he hit the ground. "Cease fucking fire!" he screamed. In response, another bullet slapped through the car door, narrowly missing taking his entire hand off. "Asshole!" he yelled.

He looked into the car and saw the others cowering and making themselves the smallest target they could. Then Roger looked down the road and saw the gas truck retreating in the distance, a small dot by now. He reasoned that the sniper wanted the gas, but now that the gas was gone, why was he still shooting? And Roger also saw a bigger problem, if possible, than the sniper. The horde of zombies from before were coming up the road . . . and most of them were sprinters. "Fuck," he muttered.

Roger lay on the dirt road behind the bullet-smashed car door and took deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves. "I am not gonna be one of them," he whispered to himself, reaching slowly into the car towards the rifle on the seat. A bullet cracked through the space where the windshield had been and tore chunks from the seat by the rifle. The sniper was playing with him now. He looked into the car, into Cora's eyes where she was hiding, and he mouthed the words he had to tell her. "I love you."

She looked confused, and he didn't pause to let that sink in either. He mouthed more words. "I'm gonna pop out and draw his fire, and you're gonna grab the rifle, search out his muzzle flash, and put a bullet through his forehead. Just like we trained."

Before she could protest, Roger dragged himself out from behind the car and crawled out, and the Glock in his hand jumped as he fired at the general position where he thought the sniper was. A tingle went up his spine and he ducked as a bullet whizzed by his head and smacked the ground nearby. He kept crawling and dodging, firing the pistol quickly all around except towards the sedan. He suddenly stopped as the pistol clicked empty, and looked towards the car, seeing Cora aiming his bolt-action upwards at a point on the hillside. He squinted at the shape there and saw a man in a ghillie suit aiming a rifle at his face . . . and Roger laughed. The man looked taken aback but still pulled the trigger. Two gunshots cracked at the exact same instant with a thundering roar.

Roger gasped as the sniper's bullet slammed into his chest. Cora's lip curled with scorn as she put a single bullet through the sniper's forehead at the same instant. He toppled back, the back of his head blown completely off. She dropped the rifle and climbed out of the car, running to Roger. But he was already staggering up.

"R-Roger?" she asked timidly, putting her hand on his shoulder.

Roger turned. He had turned, all right. Into a zombie. He bit the hell out of her neck before Edna screamed over and over, running towards them and kicking Roger away. He struggled to get to his feet, but his mangled leg impeded him and Edna shot him through the back of the head point-blank with her own handgun and he slumped in an all too final way. Cora fell to her knees, sobbing horrifically. Edna comforted her, grimness in her eyes while Aaron watched from the car, cradling Laurie, his eyes traumatized.


	15. Being Infected Sucks

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Edna stood there, listening to Cora's broken sobs and staring blankly into space. She could either raise the pistol and put a bullet into Cora's skull or she could let the infected woman live and come with them, and get the risk of Aaron getting bitten or Edna herself or . . . She drew in breath sharply. Laurie getting infected. She raised the pistol and cocked it, hands trembling.

Cora looked up at her, her eyes despairing. It looked like a rabid dog had taken a liking to her neck. It was horrible. They were both utterly motionless, Cora staring down the barrel of the pistol Edna was aiming at her forehead. Cora was a tough chick but her bottom lip trembled as she looked death in the face.

"What about having my baby?" Cora asked, her voice hoarse with grief. Her cheeks were stained by unashamed tears.

Edna looked down at her, keeping a poker face now. "Do you want your baby to be a zombie? Because that infected blood is pumping through you right now, hon."

Cora shook her head quickly. "No, we're still alive, Edna. How could you just shoot me like this, huh? How could you--"

"HOW COULD WE LEAVE MELODY BEHIND, YOU BITCH?" Edna shrieked, her eyes wild and unfocused. "If we could leave my brother and his wife behind, I can surely shoot your ho ass through the face and feel nothing more than a little heartburn."

Cora took a deep breath and laughed bitterly. "Yes, you fucking can. Do it. Don't be vaginal. Just do it."

Edna stared down at her, finger on the trigger of the pistol, facial muscles twitching violently as she tried to force herself to fire the shot. "My brother's dead because of you and your fucking friend so don't make me lose my patience and kill you," she said, and then lowered the handgun and ran back towards the sedan. She climbed into the driver's seat and, tires squealing, the vehicle pulled up beside Cora. The pregnant woman openly weeped as she took the silent invitation and climbed in the back seat.

The sedan pulled away, wheels bumping over Roger's dead body as they drove quickly away from the sprinters that came running full sprint to catch up after Roger had spotted them in the distance. Cora stared tearfully out the broken back window at the running crowd only a few feet away, and she felt a certain degree of horror as she saw Mike among the sprinters. She grabbed up the rifle off of the seat littered in shattered glass and aimed; the loud gunshot echoed in the afternoon air.

--

So that was how it was, then. Three survivors and a baby now; two women, one man; three uninfected, one infected; one calm, three nervous wrecks; one with a poopy diaper, three with . . . Well they didn't wear diapers. However you put it, this was their survivor group now.

The sedan rattled down a muddy, overgrown street with a rusty tractor parked on the side of that road. Cora looked discouraged when she read the sign. They were still only a few miles outside of Birmingham. They must have somehow got turned around. But it was too late. They had been driving nonstop all day and the gas needle was starting to get a little too low for Cora's comfort. But Edna was eerily and completely silent when the car stalled in the mud of that street, and she just sat in the seat as the car died.

Cora waited a few seconds, but then had to point out the obvious. "Those runners are gonna be coming, Edna," she argued. "We've gotta get the fuck out of here, guys before our mistakes come up and bites us in the ass. They're probably just down the road." She looked at the two motionless people and saw that they were ignoring her, and she grabbed Laurie and opened the car door, running away down the road, in the opposite direction from the not so distant moans of zombies. "Fuck you both," she shrieked over her shoulder.

She looked back once and saw the small crowd of zombies that had been able to keep up with them. They were approaching the sedan at a phenomenal pace, bloodied faces lit up with a crazed hunger, their usually-bare feet pounding the muddy gravel regardless of wounds. Cora turned away and kept running, wondering what the fuck was wrong with Edna and Aaron. A zombie leaped up on the car's hood and reached in, grabbing hold of Aaron's shoulder and pulling him forward. The man seemed to snap out of his daze only then, right before the zombie would have tore out his throat. He shot it in the head twice and the body collapsed into the seat between Aaron and Edna, blood and tissue spraying every which way.

Cora stopped about fifty feet down the road, staring back guiltily as ten or twenty zombies swarmed the sedan. But the other fifteen or so were still dashing wildly down the road towards her and Laurie so the pregnant woman took off down the road as fast as she could, knowing she was fucked.

Six gunshots rang out and six zombies fell before they could lay their cold, bloody hands on Cora or Laurie. She fell to one knee and looked up to see two men holding military rifles standing about ten feet away on the side of the road by the rusty tractor, taking down the rest of the zombies and seeming to enjoy the sound of their rifles booming. They gazed toward the sedan, where distant screams issued from within and shrugged, walking towards Cora and the baby.

"Well, I'll be damned if it isn't a pregnant lady and a little 'un," said one of the men with a smile. "Looks like humanity's still in business after all, eh? Eh?" But then he saw the bloody bite wound on her neck and his eyes went wide, raising the rifle to aim at her forehead quickly.

Cora shrugged, setting Laurie down so the baby wouldn't be hit by the bullet. "Go ahead, do it," she said blankly. Edna and Aaron and Mike and Melody and Roger and Danny and Allie and Richy were dead . . . Why not her? What was so special about her? "SHOOT ME, YOU FUCKING PUSSY!"

The men stared at her and then at the zombies that were still busily devouring Edna and Aaron in the ruined sedan. One pulled out a radio and spoke into it, eyes fixed on Cora and Laurie. "This is Team Wildwolf. We're uh . . . We're ready for extraction. Got a Gerber and a Preggo, over."

The radio was silent for a moment. "Uhhhh . . . Copy that, Wildwolf. We'll uh . . . I'm sending an extraction team stat. Over and out."

One of the men stepped forward towards Cora. "Sometimes the infected can be cured, if we do a few . . . tests on them. If you'll come with us peacefully, we might be able to help you, Miss . . . . . "

"Cora," she replied. "Cora . . . " She was about to say 'Cora Durant' which was her real name and then she remembered Danny telling her his last name during one of their nights alone. "Cora Godfrey."

"Nice to meet you, Miss Godfrey," the man replied with a warm smile that did not reach his eyes. "I'm William Creed and this is Paul Sevier."

The other man looked up and his eyes were even colder and crueler than William's. "Well howdy there, good miss."


	16. Laurie

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The extraction point was down the road about a mile, and they were going to have to run for it. Sevier ran in front, then Cora, and William came last, occasionally running backwards and aiming his rifle and taking a potshot at the horde of sprinters chasing them down the road. The zombies didn't even pay attention to the bodies of their comrades thudding to the ground around them, such was their intent on reaching the human survivors and devouring their flesh.

They ran up to the extraction point, wheezing softly, all of them winded from the long dash. The combat helicopter hovered above them, snipers taking headshots on the zombies which were getting dangerously close. The zeds surged toward them, not even caring about the bullets zipping past, and tackled William, who was at the back still.

The first one, a very dead woman, grabbed the young man's throat and struggled to bite into it, but he was holding her off with his foot placed firmly against her chest. "Paul, help me!" the soldier yelled.

Sevier looked at his partner with a grimace and then at the rope dangling feet away from him which led up to the safety of the helicopter. "I'm sorry!" he yelled over the rotors, but he didn't seem very sorry as he leaped for the rope and began climbing hand over hand as fast as he could, a soldier right above him who had already came down and gotten Laurie but not Cora yet.

"Throw me the fucking rope!" William screamed as he held off the female zombie, but the others were fast approaching and he couldn't hold them off all by himself. He had great reserves of stamina, sure. But not that much . . . Cora looked up at the chopper and yelled up at the pilot. "Put it down in that field up the road a few hundred yards. We WILL be there." She stared up at the soldier holding Laurie and smiled tearfully. Then she drew her nine-mil and turned, aiming the handgun at the forehead of the fresh zombie pinning William down, and shot it right between its ugly, rotten eyes. She helped the soldier up, but by then the zombies were mere feet away and coming fast. "Come on, the chopper's landing nearby and we've gotta get there fast."

The two survivors ran as if with slow-motion down the dirt road, chased by fresh zombies less than six feet behind them, practically feeling their cold hands and the terrible, final biting. Practically.

Then they rounded the bend and saw the helicopter sitting on the roadside up ahead, the soldier holding Laurie and then Sevier standing in front of the helicopter, urging them on anxiously, his eyes widening at the amount of undead following them. "Fucking hurry up!" he screamed.

When the zombies grabbed Cora, she thought they felt cold and clammy. It was a strange feeling, but almost peaceful as she was dragged backwards by three or four zombies at once. William kept running by for a few feet, then turned without hesitation and launched himself headfirst into the zombies. Cora had saved him and he wasn't going to get in the helicopter without her. If she wasn't going to get in, neither was he.

Cora heard the zombies hissing and growling, felt incredible pain as she was bitten and torn all over, saw her intestines slipping out of a hole in her stomach, but she didn't really care at this point. All she really cared about was Laurie. And she saw the soldier still holding her safely in the helicopter which was powering up and lifting off. And then in one instant . . . There was something like a clap of thunder, and the lights shut out.

William felt himself get eaten, but he still tried to raise his pistol. He felt satisfied when he got off a shot and hit Cora in the face, freeing her. "You're free," he whispered in a pain-hoarse voice, and raised the pistol to his chin.

He cocked the pistol.

He closed his eyes.

He prepared himself.

He pulled the trigger.

Click!

**_"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"_**


	17. Yeah, I've Been To The Year 2028

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

_**Nineteen years after the events of Zombie Road**_

Killing comes easily to survivors that had been living in a zombie-ruled world for going on two whole decades. The world was running out of time and -- most important -- they were running out of people to populate the world. The zombies outnumbered the humans 400,000 to 1 in most areas of the world and it got worse every day. The humans came by helicopter to the undead-ruled cities, raided quickly and then fled. Back to whatever safe house they managed to keep ahold of.

But some of those safe houses were particularly noticed by zombies. And sometimes they couldn't hold them off, either . . . Including the one in Nashville, Tennessee . . .

_December 21, 2028_

The zombie straddled Laurie McCoy, struggling to bite into her neck but the young nineteen-year-old woman was holding him off, her knees braced against the stench's chest. It slobbered, decaying flesh that it had once eaten dripping out of its mouth all over the front of her blouse. Fighting the urge to vomit, she turned her head sideways and looked at the other survivors standing nearby and firing weapons rapidly and desperately into the living dead spilling through the breached door of the once-safe house they knew and loved.

"Help me! Pronto!" she yelled.

"Get him off of her!" yelled Gary, but no one stepped up. Gary did, then. He placed his foot on the zed's neck to hold it back further and then shot it through the face, and Laurie shoved it off of her with a grunt of disgust. Gary flashed a smile at her that contained a little bit more than friendship before turning his attention back to the undead and resuming fire.

Laurie grabbed up her own rifle where it lay nearby. She had dropped it when the zombie had tackled her, right when they first broke through the door. The young woman locked and loaded, aiming at another ghoul and blew half of its face away. "We need to get the fuck out of here!" she screamed, working the bolt on the weapon.

Another survivor, a man of small stature, looked at her with eyes round with fear. "There is no fucking way we can get out of here. Windows are boarded up, doors blocked by zombies . . . We're fucked, missy."

She laughed bitterly. "You go wherever you want to go. Probably right into the mouths of those zombies, the way you're talking, you old foagie." She turned and ran up the stairs behind them, towards the second story of the 'safe' house. After a moment of hesitation, Gary fired a few more bursts from his own SMG and then followed her. The other survivors ran after him as well.

A few of them struggled in vain to make a barricade on the stairs for a few moments. But they were way too slow and way too ignorant. Laurie sighed and closed her eyes in anguish as she heard their pained screams. When the screams died away, the ominous silence was even worse to the survivors now trapped on the second floor.

The short man from before looked enraged. "Great plan, you fuckin' cunt," he yelled at her, his voice a harsh rasp and tears threatening in his eyes. "Now we get to die ON THE SECOND FLOOR. How much better is that supposed to be, bitch?"

Laurie just shook her head in disgust. "When you die, don't blame me. Alright, jerkoff?" She ignored him then and turned to the others. "Those who want to live . . . Stay with me. This dumbfuck can become zombie chow for all I care. In fact . . . " She whirled around and quickly raised the rifle to her shoulder and put a bullet through the short man's knee, dropping him to the floor, his screaming attracting the moaning zombies as they turned the corner and came down the hallway, most of them too old and decayed to do more than limp like the geezers they were. "Fresh bait," she whispered in the ear of the man, before she turned and -- with the other survivors hastily following -- ran to the window nearby down the hall.

Gary got there first, and broke out the bloody window -- old, old blood from back when the outbreak had first began -- with the stock of his submachine gun. He looked out of the broken window and saw the roof sloped dangerously steep outside of the sill, and he sighed. "This is not gonna be fun," the young man whispered to himself. He looked back to where the others waited impatiently and anxiously for him to climb out, so he let the MP-5 hang from a shoulder strap and clambered out.

The roof was like a big slide, from the ice that had gathered there. And Gary found this out the hard way. He fell right on his ass and slipped down the roof, screaming his head off and then fell right off the side into what had been a swimming pool nineteen years ago but was now an empty cement hole about ten feet deep. Gary groaned as he lay on his back on the icy cement floor of the pool.

"GARY!"

He looked up at the panicked shriek and saw Laurie peering through the window at him anxiously to see if he was alright, and incredibly, despite the pain searing through his body, he managed to smile. So she DOES care, he thought.

"I slipped," he called out painfully. "Slipped on the ice. Watch out, babe."

Laurie cussed her luck silently, looking back at the horde of zombies approaching slowly and menacingly, already done with the short man-meal that Laurie had sacrificed for them. "This sucks ass," she murmured, staring around for an exit. But the only one left was the window, the icy slide and then the plunge to inevitable death or injury in the cement below. And they couldn't afford to be injured or dead. They had to be able to run as soon as they hit the ground.

Then she made a decision. She ran towards the zombies -- they were slow movers, so she wasn't worried too much -- and shot a zombie through the face and kicked several others backward, tripping up the rest of the mob and slowing them down considerably. She grabbed up the zombie and shoved the body through the window as fast as she could, holding on to the corpse so it just lay on the window sill as the others looked at her like she was crazy.

"I don't know about you guys," she explained. "But I'm going sledding. In a few seconds, those zombies are going to tear us apart. You wanna be here for that, man? I sure as hell don't." She disappeared out the window and the other survivors ignored the zombies for once and crowded to the window to watch to see if she was successful.

Laurie shrieked in fearful excitement as she slid wildly on the zombie's body and then fell off the roof and plummeted right into the swimming pool, the zombie body starting to separate from her as they toppled together. But she held onto it and fortunately it broke her fall and she got no more than a few bumps and bruises. She looked up at the window where she could see the anxious faces of her fellow survivors.

"Come on in!" she yelled. She gestured to the empty swimming pool and the crushed zombie body she was standing on. "The water's fine."

Norris, the group's resident wierdo, ran a hand nervously through his spiked blond hair and then fired a single shot, grabbing his own zombie sled and jumping out. He figured it was either the zombies or the swimming pool below. And he had picked the swimming pool.

The other survivors were getting nervous as the zombies got closer, moaning softly. But yet only three more of them slid down off the roof. The other sixteen took deep breaths and turned towards sixty-five zombies staggering right for them. Their screams echoed for what seemed like forever. Laurie didn't even care as she knelt worriedly by Gary, checking him out carefully.

"How bad?" he asked, biting down on his lip hard.

"Your leg is broken," she answered, her voice trembling slightly.

"Hurts like a bitch," he confirmed painfully.

Laurie took a deep breath. "Alright, let's go, guys." She and the other four survivors lifted Gary as best they could and they ran on through the shattered and ruined necropolis that had once been Nashville, Tennessee.


End file.
